


Balance

by clockwork_shadowhunter, X_Empress_of_the_Abyss_X



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, Bottom Harry, Character Bashing, Creature Draco Malfoy, Creature Fic, Creature Harry Potter, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Good Slytherins, Hermione Granger Bashing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Manipulative Albus Dumbledore, Original Character(s), Out of Character, Ron Weasley Bashing, Top Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 56,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22047151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockwork_shadowhunter/pseuds/clockwork_shadowhunter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/X_Empress_of_the_Abyss_X/pseuds/X_Empress_of_the_Abyss_X
Summary: Life was interesting for Draco Malfoy after his fifth year. Many things changed for him and his family. His father had been a spy for the side of the light almost since the beginning of the first war, becoming a spy for protection. When the first war ended it was an enormous relief for Lucius, he never expects to be in the same position again.How new alliances can dramatically change a person's life. Learning about your true self can make all the difference.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape, Remus Lupin/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Comments: 80
Kudos: 351





	1. A Note

**Author's Note:**

> This was just something that came out of boredom and went to far. English is not my main language nor do I tend to write, so I would appreciate any feedback.
> 
> I do not own Harry Potter in any way or form. All rights of the characters are registered trademarks of J.K. Rowling
> 
> Beta'd by clockwork_shadowhunter

Life was interesting for Draco Malfoy after his fifth year, many things changed for him and his family. His father had been a spy for the side of the light almost since the beginning of the first war. He was still a pureblood who believed in the things that the Dark Lord preached but never trusted him. He is a Slytherin for a reason, he knew that the Dark Lord just wanted power and once he got it he would only want more and would point to the pureblood families then. So he changed sides and became a spy for protection. When the first war ended it was an enormous relief for him. Draco never expects to be in the same position again, he began to remember the day his father told them about this.

**• ——————— • ——————— •**

His father came home one night with a tense posture and lines of concern on his face "I need a word in the studio now"

"Lucius tell us what happened?" She put her hand on his shoulder for support, something he was grateful for.

Lucius took a deep breath before speaking with regret " _ **He**_ is back" the room stood still for a minute, everyone knowing all to well who he was talking about.

"B-but that's impossible ... this has to be a lie!" Narcissa said in anguish, she hated what the first war did to Lucius, this simply couldn't be happening again.

"It's no lie, I saw it with my own eyes ..." lifting his sleeve showing his now completely black mark instead of the faded gray it had become after the disappearance of the Dark Lord. "Wormtail performed an ancient ritual to give him a new body using Potter's blood, now he is even more powerful"

"What are we going to do father?" It was the only thing Draco could ask him.

"For now nothing. I will observe the current situation. We need to know more about the new power that the Dark Lord has and I will make sure that the Potter boy is able to win against him."

"Lucius he is just a child, he is even younger than our Draco, he cannot be the champion of the light" Narcissa said indignantly that someone would put a child in a situation like this, her heart ached at the idea.

"I know he is young, but it is the only chance they have or at least that is what that idiot Dumbledore insists on" he said in a serious tone, he had always hated the man. He didn't understand how he could say that a child was going to be their only hope in the war "at least the child has talent, he hold his own remarkably well."

"Potter has the greatest magical potential I've seen in my life, but he's not trained properly. I think he could do it, but not with the little school has taught him." That was the truth anyone could easily see his magical potential, he could be at the level of Merlin and Morgana if it weren't for their lack of education.

" We can only hope for now. "

**• ——————— • ——————— •**

All of them were on edge for days after that, the uncertainty of the whole situation was the worst. His father was away from home most of the summer either in a meeting with You-Know-Who, in a raid, or sending reports to Dumbledore. His mother seemed to always be a little distant even if she did try to smile for him. Draco was kind of numbed by the information, he couldn't really grasp the concept of a war. Yes he was born in one technically, but it ended before he had use of memory so it always sounded like a foreign concept for him. It was something you just know happened and learned about in school, but never imagined you are gonna live in it. He is certain he will have to live through it, you don't have a father like Lucius Malfoy and get to be neutral.

During that summer he also had another thing occupying his mind, he just couldn't stop thinking about Potter. He wished he could say that was a novelty but it wasn't. The guy had always managed to be in Draco's head one way or another. Ever since the first moment in Madam Malkin's when he saw those beautiful green eyes on the scrawny and shy boy, he was in trance, and something called him to this boy for reasons he couldn't come close to comprehend. Even after he had been humiliated by said boy their first night at Hogwarts he could not stop watching him all the time, craving his eyes on him constantly. He even decided to bully him to have Potter more aware of him. And yes, he is completely aware it is pathetic, but he just couldn't deal with not having Potter's attention.

By their third year he figured out the reasons he just couldn't leave Potter alone. He had a giant crush on the guy which is one of the stupidest things to ever happen to him. Potter is one of the only people Draco couldn't stand and yet that didn't stop him from dreaming about him every night. At first he refused to accept this, he blamed it on hormones and proceeded to date every wizard with black hair and light color eyes (not obvious at all) to convince himself it was nothing. Of course denial can only work so much. For the Yule ball he knew he was fucked, he had never felt so much hatred and pure rage before seeing Potter dance with one of the Patil twins. Even though the other boy was clearly uncomfortable something just snapped inside of Draco. If he hadn't had Blaise and Pansy he might have cursed the girl into hell for touching Potter. 

Since then he understood that no matter how much he fought it he was completely in love with one Harry Potter. The same guy that has hated him for years with good reason to do so. He resigned himself to just look at him from afar and confined every trace of his crush for him in a corner of his mind. That worked for a while, but now things were different. There was a war coming and Potter was in the center of it. He couldn't help but be terrified of what would happen to him. Yes, he knew Potter was incredibly powerful even with all his lack of training and he could hold his own in a duel. But war was different, war needed a lot more than just power if you don't want to die. You had to be ruthless and fine with the possibility of killing another person. He has seen Potter, he knows his heart is as pure as they come with a childlike innocence that is looking for the good in the world even when there isn't any. He was not made for war and yet he was chosen to play the biggest part.

In the last year he saw how bad the pressure was hitting Harry. He could see that it was crushing him, the constant flow of hate from people who thought he was crazy for saying that the Dark Lord came back and the way Umbridge was dead set in breaking his spirit slowly but steady. He doesn't know what kind of detention she was giving Potter, but he knew that it drained him. Potter lookd pale and dead. His eyes were lacking the emotion that before they were so full of. Draco knew that he was close to snapping but he couldn't do much to help. The only thing he could do was not give him as much detention and try help him if he could to keep his little defense club a secret as long as possible. But once someone told Umbridge their location, nothing could be done there.

He knows what happened at the end of the year. The attack at the ministry his father tried to warned the light side about but they didn't listen. When the time came it was chaos, his father told them that only a couple of students were there defending the thing the Dark Lord wanted. Mere children were fighting against the most powerful Death Eaters all by themselves. They held up better than expected and they did contain them for a long time before the Order of the Phoenix arrived to "save" the day. In the end it was even more of a disaster. Draco's fathers' cover was blow when he tried, unsuccessfully, to save Sirius Black from falling through the veil. But what he said in pity for Potter is what exposed him, _"The poor boy has lost enough people thanks to this war already."_ They had to run from the manor in case the Dark Lord went looking for them. His mother was actually immensely proud of him for doing that even if that mean running away from their home.

The Order sent them to a house in a tiny muggle town south of Scotland. They were sent with his Uncle Sev and Lupin, which was surprising. His mother told him that it was because after Black's death Lupin's mental state got extremely bad losing one of the last members of his pack. The death hit Lupin hard. Severus was not pleased with this, but his mother seemed to adore the werewolf and no one dared to say no to her if you wanted to have a pleasant life.

So that is how he ended up like this. The five of them trying to live with each other. They had been with each other a little over 3 weeks already.

"Dragon come, it's time for lunch" his mother calls him from the door. Remus was actually the only one who knew how to cook a little. He made all the meals for everyone, his mother began to learn although he thinks it's just to spend time with the werewolf.

He was the last one at the table, they started a light conversation until a small piece of paper appeared in the center of the table.

"Well, this is strange, maybe it's the Order," said the werewolf when he tried to reach it.

"Or it could be a trap, don't touch it, fool!" Uncle Sev shouts and proceeds to cast multiple spells until he considered the note safe enough.

"Severus you don't need to scream at the table, please," Narcissa said as he grabbed the paper and looked at them shaken. The note was small, so there wasn't much to read. The alarming thing was that it was written in blood. "Help me," that's all it said.

By the time his mother finished, Lupin's eyes glowed golden and a wild growl tore his throat, scaring them all.

"That has Harry's blood!" He was up and ready to leave in seconds until Narcissa put a delicate hand on his face.

"Remus breath please. If this is Harry's blood and he needs help we will all go. But you need to be in control of yourself first," putting both hands on his face and forcing him look at her.

"Are you absolutely sure this has his blood?" his father asks with a neutral tone.

"I could recognize his smell anywhere, it's him."

"Why are we still here? He is obviously in trouble." Draco was nervous without knowing what happened to Potter to cause him to send something like that.

"Draco darling you can't come, it could be dangerous," his mother told him softly when she noticed him going out of the house with them.

"Mother with all due respect, I will help, I will not stay here," he said firmly.

"Dragon, this is not your place to help."

"Since when do you care about Potter?" Severus said a little confused by the way Draco was acting.

"I think it might be convenient, keep in mind which house you will go to. There is a very good possibility that Father and Uncle Severus cannot enter, I mean it would be a terrible lack of judgement if someone with the dark mark could enter the house of the savior, don't you think? " He was thinking about this on the fly, but he just had to go. "And it can't be bad to have someone else to be alert of the surroundings."

"I can see that there is some logic in your argument." Lucius said looking at his son with curiosity, it was really strange for him to act this way. "I guess it would not hurt to bring you with us as long as you are careful, now we should go quickly. "

They immediately left the barrier, Draco linked arms with his mother to apparate with her. The typical pull that comes with apparition was a little worse than normal as it was a location unknown to them only guided by the description of Lupin. Privet Drive was as quiet as ever, no car or inhabitant in sight.

"Potter lives here?" Draco said quite disgusted with the surrounding houses. They were all exactly alike, not a single bit of character or originality throughout the street.

"I know they are Muggles, but I expected them to have a minimal sense of style, this is horrible," Narcissa said with the same disgust.

"It's a common suburb, it's normal for all houses to be the same," said Remus as he began to move looking for number 4.

Once they got there, everything seemed normal, the lights were still on. They hoped not to have many problems trying to enter.

"There are not wards around this house" Severus concluded after a couple of spells.

"How can that be, if Potter lives here there should be at least one. What was the Order thinking? " Draco said. He might have been bluffing before but it was true that there should be wards for at least people with the dark mark.

They couldn't stop to think about it much because Remus was already walking to the door after it was deemed safe and knocked before they could catch him.

"Whatever you're selling, we don't want it!" someone screams from inside. Remus keeps knocking on the door until they hear very loud footsteps approaching. A whale of a man was standing at the door. "What do you all want, it's late?! Go before I call the police!"

"Sir, we are not here to sell anything, we are here to see Harry Potter." Narcissa decided to take the initiative because Remus seems ready to kill someone. Draco was holding his arm with gentle restraint.

The man's face became one of disgust and hatred immediately. "There is no Harry Potter here! Go away, you freaks!" Narcissa put her wand on his throat with a soft smile on her face but her eyes promised painful murder. She has limits to her patience

"Sir, I don't appreciate someone yelling at me or insulting me," Vernon jumped out of her way but ended up against one of the walls. The others were surprised by this, she normally wasn't violent in the least, "now, you are going to find Harry immediately."

"Oh god, this is worse inside," Lucius said with disgust, standing behind his wife.

Draco was standing next to his father examining the entry way of the house. The decoration was poorly matched in an obvious attempt to appear a better social status and more elegance than they actually possess. They also seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with their son, wherever he looked there was a picture of that elephant of a boy. It was a bit alarming, the total lack of Potter in the place. There was absolutely nothing to say that he ever lived there. Draco would even be tempted to say that they had the wrong house if it wasn't for the family's reaction.

"Vernon! Who are these people? Our little Popkin is scared to death..." Her face turned white when she saw Severus, and with her high pitch voice screamed "YOU!"

"For the love of Merlin woman, stop screaming." he sneered "Petunia, I should have guessed that you would have the bad judgement of marrying this whale. Now since we don't want to be here any longer than necessary, show us where Potter is and be done with this.

"Now wait a moment you lot of freaks can not come to my home and demand things! First we get stuck with that horrible boy who only causes problems for everyone, and now thanks to him I have to have these freaks in my house! He should have done everyone a favor and died with his useless parents. " Vernon had the bad choice of shouting. Narcissa did not bother to listen to more of the insults of the man and cast a silencer spell on him, while the other three men had the opportunity to cast a couple of curses in his direction that would not be visible outside.

"Vernon! .... That monster is in his room" her voice was loaded with such disdain that it surprised Draco a little. He could not believe that these were the people with whom Potter lived, he already wanted to kill them and he hasn't known them for more than 10 minutes.

She took them upstairs to a door with at least 7 locks on it and a tiny cat flap at the bottom. She then proceeded to practically throw the keys at them and run downstairs.

"Take him far away from here if you want but be out of my house before we come back! " she grabbed her husband and elephant like child and disappeared as fast as humanly possible.

"This doesn't bode well" thought Draco while his father opened the door with a nonverbal spell. What they see makes them all turn white.

The room was not big enough to even be a decent closet. The walls were bare, it had one window with bars on it, no light, and a tiny bed with a bare thin mattress. What really caught their attention was the boy in the bed curled up holding his legs to his chest for dear life, hiding his face while lying in a pool of dried blood. His exposed back full of horrible scars a couple of the lashes still red and raw.

Narcissa could not stop the gasp that fell from her lips. Unable to grasp how someone could do something like that to another human being, much less to a child. Harry must have heard her because in a matter of seconds. He jumped from his position to the far end of the bed, looking at them with pure fear in his big emerald eyes that without his typical glasses looked larger. His face looked so childish even with his hollow cheeks.

"An angel?" Harry spoke in a low voice, feeling dizzy from moving so fast after losing so much blood. He was looking at the blurry white outline that was Draco, unable to see in his current state. "Did I really die?"

Draco blushed slightly at that, but his body moved before he could think. Slowly approaching the bed until he was next to Harry.

"No, you didn't die, Harry. We're here to take you to a safe place." He spoke in a soft tone that no one had heard before, Harry seemed to relax slightly.

Harry didn't completely register what was happening around him, but something deep inside him relaxed at that gentle voice and the calming scent that hit him once the figure pulled him close to their chest. He was suddenly feeling very light and safe for reasons he couldn't quite explain. Harry knew he was safe with this figure. Soon he was sleeping peacefully in Draco's arms.

All the others remained completely paralyzed trying to process what just happened. It must be a collective hallucination because there was absolutely no way they had witnessed a severely beaten Harry Potter letting himself be cuddled by Draco Malfoy. Along with the later being extremely delicate and gentle with the other boy. It all seems so out of the realm of possibility that none of them moved for a couple of minutes.

"You should find your things, we have to get out of here. Harry needs medical attention quickly," Draco said quietly but firmly enough to urge you to action.

"Remus, we should look for their things while Severus and Lucius look for the appropriate potions." Narcissa took him by the hand and led him to the dining room where she hugged him "Now he will be safe."

"How could they do this? He's only 15 years old ... I don't even want to think about what they did all these years." His wolf wanted to dismember all those who dared to harm his cub, he was having a lot of trouble holding Moony back.

"I don't know, but right now he needs us. We have to be in our best form" before separating she whispered in his ear "everything will be fine."

They used " ** _point me_** " to find Harry's things. They opened the cupboard under the stairs and took the truck exchanging silent looks of horror at the small cot with bloodstains that was inside. Narcissa gather all of the child's drawings that were in a small box in the corner. Remus released Hedwig telling her where to go while Draco lifts Harry in his arms. Draco's mother linked her arm with his and they all apparated to the safe house.


	2. Safe House

Severus apparated out of that house so fast he almost splinched himself. His mind was running wild trying to process that the child he has tormented for years, the child he hated more that anyone else in the world has been abused at home and he didn't notice. How didn't he notice?! He knows all the signs and what to look for in every case. He has done a perfect job at finding students all over the houses that were abused since he started working as a professor. He was silently helping them if they weren't his snakes. Still when it came to the child he had promised his best friend he was going to protect he let himself be blinded with hatred enough to bully the child since the first moment he saw him. Creating another place where he couldn't be safe or ask for help to get out of that awful place. Lily would be so ashamed of him, he can almost imagine her disappointed face.

Did he really think it would be okay to ask a first year student N.E.W.T. level questions, knowing he had been raised by Muggles? How didn't he think of Petunia when Dumbledore told him that Potter would be living with a Muggle relative. He would have known immediately that Petunia isn't mature enough to take care of a magical child. He never imagined she would abuse him at the level he just witnessed. Even he, with all of his hatred for Potter, would never be capable of doing that to a child.

Lucius came up hugging him from behind and resting his head on his shoulder effectively pulling him out of his thoughts.

"I know this must be difficult for you Severus, but right now the child needs you to be in your best shape. You owe him at least that" Lucius's voice always took him to a state of calm, where he could reorganize his mind safely.

"How I didn't see the signs, I was browsing through my memory and they are there ... there are not many, and he does not match with other child abuse profiles that I have seen before. But they are there! What if he is not the only one I missed?!"

"He has always been a special child. Maybe that is why he does not completely coincide with others, or the situation he is in has forced him to hide the signs better than most" it was the only thing he could think off, he really doesn't know much about what to look for in general with these cases, much less with a rare case.

"I don't know Luc. I really don't know" Pulling out of the hug " You should be more careful if someone saw you, they might think you are unfaithful"

"My dear Severus, you know very well that it would not do anything to my marriage. Also I am pretty sure that my wife's eyes are on a certain werewolf." He smiled, pleased that their marriage was different from most pure-blood, while they did not love each other as husband and wife they were as close as siblings.

"Yes I noticed, that doesn't bother you?" Referring to the fact that he was a werewolf. He gathered all the potions that have anything to do with healing or nutrition.

"No, why would it bother me? I am happy that she found someone that interests her, and I dare to say that they would be a good match. He seems to be as kindhearted as she is. And for his condition, well, I do not think that is my business. Narcissa does have one of the best potion master of the century on hand to brew wolfsbane every month".

"I still don't like the werewolf" he still resents him for not stopping the rest of the Marauders "but it's not like I haven't been making that potion for years"

"I doubt she would asks you to like him, I guess he doesn't have much love for you either, but both of you should be polite now that we'll help the Potter boy"

"Don't you think Draco is acting strange with him?" The attitude of his nephew baffles him. Severus knows that Draco has a good heart under the facade that he presents to the public, but he could not say that he saw him as someone gentle so to speak.

"I had never seen him be so tender with anyone before it is peculiar. Although he has been more than a little obsessed with Potter for years now. " Lucius began to think that it was not so strange that his son acted in this way." If my suspicions are correct I would say that our dragon is in love. They would be a perfect match, at least in the political sense, the heirs of two of the most ancient and noble families in our society. It would be an ideal union"

"Only you would think about the political advantages of that. I don't think it would work, there are too many years of bad blood between the two of them." He roll his eyes and finishes packing the last of his private lab. "All ready we should go back now."

"Do you want to make a little bet my dear Severus?" Lucius smirks while Severus just ignores him.

The both appear outside the safe house where Lupin opens the door for them and guides them to what is generally Draco's room. Narcissa was using her old healer training to fix the open wounds on Harry's back. Draco had the boy's head in his lap and was sliding his finger through his hair being careful not to wake him up or hinder his mother. Even if she had the proper training she did not exercise it frequently so she needed absolute concentration on her task if she wanted everything to come out well.

"He is stable for now but he is heavily underweight, he currently three broken ribs, and his ankle and a couple of fingers are broken. His magic seems to have been trying to heal him all by itself"

"Survival magic, that... that hasn't been seen since the witch hunts." Severus right away started to put the healing salve on to close wounds, ignoring the disturbing feeling of ribs and scar tissue under his fingers. He set blood replenishers and other potions aside for when Harry can drink them.

"Yes, but thanks to that he has a lot of bones that didn't heal properly. I will have to be re-break to set them right. I don't know how he is still alive... he lost massive amounts of blood" Narcissa sat down on one of the chairs very tired after all the spell. 

"Will he be okay?" Remus's worried voice came, he had stayed out of the way controlling his anxiety for his cub 

"He is better to some extent, but it will be a long time before he is completely healthy again." She put her hand on his shoulder to calm him down a bit. "He should be waking up soon." 

"Mother, could you transfigure some glasses? I think he will need them once he wakes up." Draco didn't even attempt to move.

"Son, I think you should get out of there, I don't think Harry is going to be very welcoming to you when he is more aware of his surroundings" his father told him.

"I can't, every time I move he starts to wake up and seems to be in anguish." He moves a little and immediately Harry clings to his shirt making a sound almost like an injured puppy.

"Why does he cling to you so much? And why are you accepting it so easily?" his father asked with a neutral tone.

"I don't really know why he's doing it, but at least I'm pretty comfortable this way." At that moment he started running his fingers through Harry's hair again, causing the boy to literally start purring. Draco looked at the boy who now had his head buried in his chest as he gripped his shirt tightly and smiled softly.

The other occupants of the room looked at them a little uncomfortably, the atmosphere surrounding the teenagers was somewhat intimate and it felt wrong that they were witnessing the moment.

"You love him." Remus smiles completely sure of his statement.

"Ahhh, wh-what makes you thi-think that?" Draco stuttered a little, which causes Severus and his father to chuckle mildly.

"Because first, that was the most in love look I have seen since James with Lily. Second, because of the way you smelled." He says simply and smiled softly. He seemed quite satisfied with this new information which surprised the other adults a bit.

"Wait, what do you mean by the way I smell?" Trying to change the subject and avoid the question.

"Well to be more specific is the way your magic smells. Thanks to my condition if I spend a lot of time with people I can smell their magic." He left out that technically he could only do that with people his wolf recognized as members of the pack, but they didn't need to know that. "Magic is directly related to emotions and generally changes certain things to show the emotional state of the person. Yours just changed to love and contentment."

"I didn't know you could smell magic, that's quite impressive. " Narcissa blushed slightly, not sure if Remus could smell her magic and know her feelings. "So it seems that my dragon is finally in love"

She was practically jumping for joy, she had worried when her baby showed absolutely no interest in any of the marriage candidates they had presented him with. They did not want to pressure him or make a marriage contract without his consent as their parents did to them, but it is improper and frowned upon for an heir like Draco not to be properly betrothed by the time he is of age.

"You may be right about this," Draco said defeated. He knew perfectly well that his mother was already planning his wedding in her head before he even confirmed it. It was useless to deny it.

"In that case, I hope you start courting him soon. You only have a year before you are of age and get your inheritance" his father said, he seemed pleased with the turn of events.

"I'm not sure that's possible father. I may be interested, but I do not think Potter is. We don't have any kind of positive relationship so far, and I am pretty sure he will curse me if I even ask him." It still hurt a little to say out loud even if it was just a fact. He was quite surprised that his parents were supporting this.

"Hmmm, that simply will not do dragon, you are talking as if you were going to just give up" said his mother once she stopped picking flowers for the wedding in her head "you will have to show him how good of a prospect you are. He also seems to be able to relax when you're by his side, that has to be a good sign."

"Okay, you two agree with this way too much, you are scaring me"

"Well, you never show any interest in our candidates to marry son, and you've been talking about him unceasingly since you were six. I think that more than agreeing with the situation, it's more that neither of us is really surprised about it" Said his father smiling, he loved to surprise his son.

"Wow make me sound more desperate please" rolling his eyes "I haven't been talking about him since I was six."

"Hahahaha, I think you should try Draco, Harry doesn't hold grudges. If you give him a sincere apology, he will forgive you immediately" Remus said. That is true, Harry does not seems capable to hold grudges if the person apologizes. But in this particular case it will help that he has been equally obsessed with Draco since first year.

Before they could keep talking about this Harry started to move, waking up little by little. Harry didn't know what was happening, he just knew that his body didn't hurt as much as when he lost consciousness. He also knew he was surrounded by something warm and comforting, that same thing ran fingers through his hair something that always made him sleepy. He tried to recognize his surroundings, but everything was blurry without his glasses. Uncle Vernon had broken them while punishing him a couple of days ago.

"Where I am?" he took the glasses that his mother transfigured and carefully placed them on Harry's face, a little sad because they covered his eyes a little. He could not reflect much on that, when Harry seemed terrified to see them and began to hyperventilate.

"Harry look at me." Remus acts quickly knowing that Harry was going to have a panic attack. He had already dealt with many of them with Sirius and Peter at school, and with Harry a couple of times when the lessons with the boggart were a little longer than usual or it was a bad day for the teen. "Breath with me I know this looks bad, but I promise you that you are 100% safe, try to follow my breathing cub."

Remus began to take deep breaths and holding for a couple of seconds and releasing. He keeps following that pattern for a few minutes making sure that Harry looked at the room and regained his balance a little. No one wanted to interrupt them in case the situation got worse.

"Everything is fine, you are doing very well just keep copying my breathing, nobody is going to hurt you I promise." After a couple more minutes Harry seemed to calm down enough to speak, even if he was still gripping Remus's hand with all his strength. "I will explain everything I promise Harry."

"Where I am? Why are they here? Why are you here? How am I here? And why am I in Draco Malfoy's lap?" With each question his tone became more hysterical. Draco decided to get away from Harry and go sit with his parents.

Harry regretted the loss of heat the moment it disappeared, something inside him was screaming his discontent but it was not the time to concentrate on that.

"We are in a small town in Scotland, the exact location is unknown. This is the safe house the Order sent us to. The Malfoy's are here because Lucius was a spy, but his cover was discovered by accident." He didn't want to mention Sirius, that would only alter Harry more. "So they needed to be out of the public eye for a while. I'm here because I wanted a little time out of the Order and with as many people here as protection would be more convenient. You are here because ... we received your note asking for help and we went looking for you"

Harry paled considerably when he learned that everyone knew what was happening in his uncle's house. He had been so careful not to be discovered! He was always using a glamour so his roommates wouldn't see his scars and how thin he really is. Not even Madam Pomfrey had been able to see through them. He looked down realizing he was shirtless and his real body was completely exposed. He quickly pulled up the sheet on the bed trying to cover himself, the previous panic had returned and he had stopped breathing completely without noticing.

"Harry breath with me, everything is fine, we are not judging you I promise. Even Severus doesn't, and you know how much he loves to judge people." Harry laughed a little at that even though he couldn't breath properly yet. Severus glared at Remus although he preferred not to say anything. "For your last question, you were in his lap because every time he moved out of bed you clung to him in your sleep and you sounded a little distressed. So he preferred to stay with you."

He blushes furiously, he had clung to Draco Malfoy while he slept, that was mortifying enough without even considering his current state. It is one thing to have a crush on him and a very different one was to act like a clingy child demanding that he hold him while he slept. He decided not to think about it now and concentrated on classifying the rest of the information he just received, something had stood out for him.

"What note? I didn't send any help notes ... Hedwig was locked in her cage and even if she wasn't I can't open the window."

Narcissa got up handing him the note and going back to her seat. She didn't want to make him nervous, understanding that all this must be a great shock to the poor boy.

Harry read the little paper and frowned, he didn't write this, he did write a note a bit like this but he was 7 years old. But after the beating he got when Dudley found it he stopped him from doing it again. And later when he begged Dumbledore to let him stay in Hogwarts because the Dursley's were going to kill him now that he knew about the magical world and was denied. 

"Mmmmm not to alarm you but .... I did not write this, I haven't tried to escape since first year"

"Potter, this is no time to joke! You were locked in a room alone, and this is your blood. Who else could have written it, your owl?" Severus scoffed.

"I'm not kidding sir ... what day is it?" he asks suddenly.

"Saturday" Lucius said calmly and sent a look to Severus warning him to remain silent for now.

"Okay, then I lost consciousness three days ago." Everyone looks at him for an explanation. And he knew it was not an option to keep quiet "On Thursday my uncle saw my cousin groping me while I was cooking and decided that it was my fault. As if I wanted that pig to touch me," he says in a really calm tone as if this were the most normal of his life. He did not make eye contact with any of them, the others had minimal hope that this was the worst thing that had happened. "He took me to my room and used his belt on me until I passed out... that's the last thing I remember until I woke up here. I didn't write that, I already resigned myself to being in that house until I finish school."

"It's okay Harry, we will figure it out. " Remus smiles at him and got up from the chair. "Cub, please excuse me, I need to go for a couple of minutes. I will be right back and you need to eat."

With that said he got out of the room, his wolf was going crazy and he didn't know how to control it right now. Someone beat his cub, someone touched his cub without consent, he just couldn't handle it right now.

"I will go help him. It is true dear, you need to eat. Severus, Lucius, behave." She practically ran after Remus.

"What was that about? " Harry asks trying to dissipate the tension a little, he never liked silence.

"I think my mother has a crush on him." Harry's eyes went wide at that, looking at Lucius unconsciously. The one time he has saw his uncle beat someone other than him was when his aunt got asked on a date by one of the guys at the store.

"I think your mother would prefer to call it a small infatuation, but a crush could be the word also" deciding to ignore Harry's look at the moment he got up pulling Severus out of the room with him. 

"You should shut your mouth or a fly could get in there" Draco said amused at his expression and loving the blush on Harry's cheeks after that.

"Sorry, it just sounds a little weird that your mother has a crush on Remus and that your father doesn't seem bothered by it."

"It doesn't really bother him, he is quite happy for her I think" to the expression of surprise that he received, he explained better "my parents don't love each other in the conventional sense of the word. They love each other more like siblings than a couple. Their parents forced them to marry, many pureblood families sign marriage contracts without the consent of their heirs. Both of them decided that they would marry, but both are allowed to find a person to love for themselves. I think that my Father has been trying to woo Uncle Sev for years."

"It's amazing, it's really sweet that they have that kind of relationship." After a couple of minutes the silence became too much for Harry, "I'm sorry I clung to you before..."

"Oh Harry, it is no bother. I was actually quite comfortable there."

"You called me ... Harry?" He was very confused by what was happening. He really didn't know how to process all this.

"Well yes, that's your name" trying to sound casual but not really achieving it.

"Yes but you've never called me Harry before, you hate me. Why are you acting so kind to me now? " tilting his head to the side "I'm a little confused."

"Oh Harry, I had never hated you not really. There have been times where you have irritated me, but it was never hate." He got closer to Harry, sitting on the bed next to him. "I'm being nicer because well, I would like to know you better now. I know very well that I had been unpleasant with you for a long time ... I have treated you horrible and made your life more difficult than it already is. I am very sorry for all that I have done to you. I kept a stupid resentment for something that happened years ago where I was the one who was wrong. I had been a git, of course you weren't going to want to have me around. I would like to be able to start over with you if possible. I am very sorry for everything I did in recent years and I will understand if you do not want to start over. There have been many years of hostility for a simple apology to really fix anything. I understand if you do not want to, I will not hold a grudge this time if you don't accept."

Harry give himself the time to really look at Malfoy. He didn't expect that answer, or more like he didn't expect to see so much sincerity on every word. He had originally thought it was out of pity for his current state. But he didn't see any pity or judgement in Malfoy's eyes, he could see some nervousness, expectation and a lot of fear of being rejected again. He looks different that his usual posh and cold mask that he uses at almost every turn. Now he looks more human, more approachable. He had forgiven the insults and hexes a long time ago because he always thought that he defended himself, so they were always even in his mind. Malfoy has always been an enigma to him, he is someone he always tried to ignore but never really succeeded at it. He always ended up thinking about him in some way or ended up watching him. Harry was always aware of him no matter his situation. He has watched him from afar so much that even he could have glimpsed little vestiges of his true personality, with sincere smiles or moments where he could not contain his joy. There were not many, but he knows they exist. The more he saw these little glimpses the more he wanted to get to know him. Along the way he may have fallen for him a little. Only someone blind could not see that the boy was beautiful, tall with a good amount muscle. His hair was always perfect and it looked so soft and matched perfectly with his gray eyes that in some light look silver. He really wanted to know him better since the third year, but he never thought he would have the chance. The guy hated him after he rejected his hand in friendship first year. He didn't really regret denying him because Malfoy had been terrible at the time, but he regretted never trying to fix it. Now he could fix it and get to know him. He decided to extend his hand this time.

Draco's mind was in chaos. Harry hadn't spoken in a couple of minutes, and he was looking at him like he was reading his soul. Those unnerving green eyes were looking for something and Draco didn't know what it was. He didn't move, letting him search and reach his decision. He took the time to take a good look at Harry, the boy looked terrible in the medical sense. Harry was terribly thin, and his body was full of scars. So many that it was difficult to know what had caused them. He had more than someone from his age should have, but to him he was still the most beautiful creature to honor the earth. Harry was so small that he could easily lift him up. This always caused him the strange need to grab him and protect him from all the bad things in the world, even if he knew Harry didn't need anyone protecting him in the first place. His eyes were so beautiful that they took his breath away, always so full of emotion, so sincere and innocent. His lips were the perfect shape and slightly pink, excelling on his tanned skin. His hair was always one of Draco's favorite things, it looked so soft and messy he always wanted to get his hand in it. Everything about Harry was perfect to him. When he saw that he held out his hand, he didn't hesitate to take it.

"I would really like to get to know you Draco" Harry said testing the name. He quite liked the feeling of his name coming from his lips. "But the apology is not necessary, I was not a victim. I did fight back, and I said and did awful things to you as many times as you did to me. So don't worry about it."

"I would really like the same thing Harry. " Draco loved the way Harry said his name he wanted to keep hearing it forever "I don't really know if that's correct, but if you say so, I suppose that is fine."

"You should sleep a little more, I am guessing they are going to interrogate you more when they come back." Draco got up to leave but Harry grabbed his sleeve. 

"Could you... uh maybe stay... you don't have to of course. I just was really comfortable before ... uh sorry... "Harry talk so softly Draco needed a couple of seconds to understand the request. But once he did, he moved Harry gently. Draco laid down by Harry and let him curl up to him without another word.


	3. Remembering the Past

Narcissa followed him out completely aware that she should stay inside in case Remus's wolf, Moony, decided to attack. But the werewolf needed someone now and she wouldn't abandon him.

"Remus dear, please come here." After a little while she found him under one of the trees, crouching down to meet his eyes and softly pulling him to her shoulder "there you are dear"

Remus hugged her like a life line, he knew he should keep some distance taking in consideration that she is a married woman. He couldn't help it, his wolf picked her to be his mate the moment he saw her, whether he wanted to or not. Remus needs her more than he needs to breath right now.

"How didn't I notice... this is my fault."

"You couldn't know Remus. And you are not the one who put him there, you love Harry like your own son and you are not to blame for this."

"But I should've known, I didn't watch him enough! I didn't think why he had such a hard time finding a happy memory for his patronus, or why he had panic attack similar to Sirius..."

"You couldn't have known. His bad experiences in school alone could have been the reason for those panic attacks, and at that age a patronus is almost impossible. Of course you wouldn't right way think it was a problem with the memory he was using. You can't change the past dear, now all you can do is be with him and support him." Kissing the top of his head, she let the sound of her heartbeat relax him. "Tell me, can you smell my magic?"

"What?" blushing a little at the question, oh he could and it drove him absolutely crazy every second they were near each other. 

"You said you could smell the magic of the people you have spent a lot of time with. We have spent almost every day together since we arrived here." She was curious about this, and it would help to distract him for a moment.

"Well yes, I can smell your magic."

  
"Tell me a little about it." Running her fingers through his hair, quite happy that he didn't feel as tense in her arms anymore.

"It smells like garden lilies, narcissus and roses. It's very comforting and motherly in a way, subtle and warm is the best I could describe it."

"That sounds lovely, thank you. Who else can you tell me??" 

"Well, Draco smelt a little like peppermint, apples, and the essence of the air right before a storm. It's a unique combination actually." His wolf settled down by being next to her. Calm enough at least to not fear harming anyone. "And Harry smells like sugar with a hint of lilies and something more earthy. I don't know about Snape or Lucius."

"Maybe when more time passes with them, they are a little bit harder to get to know well." She smiled kindly at him. "Do you feel well enough to help me make dinner? Harry needs to start eating as soon as possible."

"Lead the way." After making dinner the both of them decided that they would all eat in the room with Harry.

When they entered the room they found both teens in the bed. Harry was sleeping cuddle up to Draco while he was reading, both completely at peace with each other. Draco sat the book aside when he noticed them.

"I will assume that you apologized then." Remus smiled at them. He knows Harry feels something for Draco, but they have to figure that out for themselves.

"Yes I did, he actually said it wasn't necessary because he always fought back. So we were even in a way."

"That sounds like my Harry, and how did you end up in the bed?" Narcissa and him were rearranging things for all of them to eat.

"He asked me to," trying very hard not to blush "he said he was comfortable before. Harry needs to rest with all the questions that father and Uncle Sev will bombard him with once he wakes up again."

As if he had summoned, them both men entered the room. His uncle rolled his eyes when he saw the position he was in, but began to leave the different potions for Harry on the desk without saying anything about it.

"I think you just lost our bet dear Severus" Lucius smirked.

"It's not a bet, you are the one who said it. I didn't agree to it."

"What did you two bet on now?" asked Narcissa amused. 

"I bet, that our dragon would get the fiancé he wants. He is a Malfoy after all, we don't settle for less. But Severus didn't agree, for some strange reason he keeps doubting me." Lucius sat on the chair Remus transfigured.

"I would think after all these years he would've learned to just ignore you" Narcissa laughed.

"How you two have been married this long is a mystery to me, he is insufferable." Severus glared without any real heat behind it.

"Easy, he bothers you Severus. He knows better than to annoy me." Both her and her husband laughed at that while Severus just keep glaring at both of them. Remus approached Harry to try to wake him gently.

"Harry, it's time to eat." That did not work, and Harry simply complained a little and snuggled more into Draco.

"Come on Harry, it's time to wake up" moving him a little more.

  
"Don' wanna" Harry replied groggily.

  
"Harry" speaking a little more firmly this time "if you do not wake up, you will not get to try the Treacle Tart I made for dessert."

That did the trick, Harry jumped up, sitting on the bed at the mention of his favorite dessert. Draco laughed at how his eyes shined by the mention of sugar. He got up and passed him one of his sweaters, it was huge on him but it was enough for now.

"These are the potions to start your regiment. You will take the ones for your bones and weight at breakfast and the others for your immune system and more specific nutritional needs at lunch. They would not react well taken at the same time. So you better not mix them all together." Severus clarified when he showed four potions.

Harry decided not to try his luck at the moment and took the potions without complaining. He tried not to pull a face, but didn't quite manage to hide his disgust. Dinner was quiet for the most part. Draco and Harry began to talk lively about quidditch and other trivial things, while the adults kept their distance. They didn't want to disturb the small bubble of peace that had been created, but all good things had to end eventually.

  
"Harry, we need to talk to you about all of this" Narcissa said as gently as she could. 

"Is it really necessary?" Harry didn't want people to know how weak he really is. What kind of self respecting wizard would be abused by muggles like he was? He was supposed to be better than this.

  
"Yes it is dear. I'm sorry but we need to know how long this has been going on, and how serious it is." She sat at his left side petting his head softly in a motherly gesture. "None of us will say anything about this to anyone, we promise." 

Harry looked at all of them, concentrating on all of their expressions. Remus, Narcissa, and Draco looked at him gently but without pity or judgment. They wanted to know because they wanted to help him, that did comfort him a little. Then he looked at Severus and Lucius. Their faces were neutral and didn't betray any emotion. There was something comforting about the blank mask, just as much as the gentle expression of the others. 

Logically he knows they will not laugh at him. But a bigger part of him still wanted to run for the hills and never look back if it got him out of this conversation. He couldn't lie to them like he lied to anyone else every time they asked. These were Slytherins, they know lies better than anybody. They wouldn't be deceived as easily, and Remus could literally smell if he was insincere. There was no way out of this but to tell them the truth, as much as he didn't want to do so.

"Alright.... what do you need to know?" He looked at a spot on the wall and pulled his legs to his chest.

"Well let's begin by when they started." They all let Narcissa handle the conversation, she was the gentle one of them. 

"I don't really remember, it has always been like that. So I guess since they took me in."

"Then tell me what you remember."

"I remember that Aunt Petunia wanted me to be useful. She taught me to clean and cook as soon as I could walk, even before that I think. I needed to earn my keep. After all, they were being kind enough to let me stay with them." His voice was monotone, he detached himself completely to survive this conversation. "I slept under the sink in the kitchen at the beginning. When I turned four I got too big for the space, so they moved me to the cupboard..."

"The cupboard under the stairs? Where your trunk was?" She was very careful to not change her facial expressions. 

  
"Yes that one. Well that was my room until I got my letter to Hogwarts. Then they moved me to the room upstairs, I think they got scared thinking that maybe someone was watching them. "

"What did they made you do for them?"

"Normally I had a list of chores. I had to cook breakfast, go to the garden and trim the roses, and refresh the painting on the walls. After that I cook lunch, clean the whole house, complete Dudley's homework, and do the laundry and ironing. Then after that, if I still have time, I have to fix anything I can find in the house I may have missed. After that is all finished I make dinner, clean the dishes, and fix their clothes for the next day." He stops for a little while trying to remember the other things. "I did some others things, if their church has a charity sale, I had to organize things for it. It depends on the day and what they need, but I think that's the everyday things."

"Darling, you said you cook all their meals. When do you eat? "

"It depends on the week. They normally fed me three times a week. They gave me the leftovers and a little bit of bread. I usually got water while watering plants or cleaning the dishes, that was fine... if it was a bad week, well I just didn't eat."

"I need you to tell me about those bad weeks. What happened then?"

"They punished me if I did something wrong... or if what I did didn't meet their criteria." He curled up a little tighter.

"What did they do?"

"Aunt Petunia usually hit me in the head with the frying pan or she made me put my hand on the hot oil... my uncle, well he normally used his belt, or the cane, depending on what I did... if I did accidental magic, it was worse then. He would hit me or choke me until I lost consciousness. Then he locked me in my cupboard for a week or two. Aunt Petunia usually gave me a glass of water every four days more or less... I guess she didn't want me dead or something." He shrugged with that. He never really understood why she didn't just let him die. It would have been better than that life. "I guess that's all. Dudley is just a spoiled brat that likes to make life harder for me. He mostly just made me do his homework and beat me up as often as he could. He also made sure I couldn't have any friends at school by threatening them. Dudley always punched me when they played Harry hunting."

Draco couldn't process all of this new information. How could someone do that to a child!? And how could no one do something about it?! He didn't care if it was a muggle or wizard. No one should do that to anybody, much less a child at their care. When he heard about Harry's cousin, shame ran through him. That sounded familiar, a spoiled brat making his life harder and taking every opportunity to make him miserable. Now he understood better the repulsion Harry had with him. He was a mirror image of that whale he saw at that house every day (well he was better looking but that's besides the point). How could Harry forgive him so easily? He should be mad, he should hate him, and yet Harry forgave him like it was the easiest thing in the world.

In a quick gesture, Draco locked eyes with his father and uncle, silently agreeing that something has to be done. Those muggles simply couldn't go without any punishment.

Narcissa couldn't resist anymore, she pulled Harry into her arms like that would protect him from the outside world (in her motherly opinion it would). She rearranged him in her lap, leaving his head on her shoulder.

  
Harry was surprised by his new position. He couldn't remember ever being held like this. Harry assumed his parents maybe did it, but he can't really remember them. Her warm was making him drowsy, and he felt the strange urge to cry. He didn't know why her comfort would have this effect on him, but tears started to fall uncontrollably. 

"It is alright dear, it is best if you just let it out." Running her fingers through his hair, she started to softly hum a French lullaby that she used to sing to her Dragon when he had nightmares.

Nobody said anything or moved for what felt like hours. They just let Harry cry softly while Narcissa comforted him for as long as he needed . After about twenty minutes Harry pulled himself together a little.

"I'm sorry..." His cheeks were red with embarrassment for crying in front of all of the others.

"Dear, it is alright. This is a lot to handle and you especially have a lot of stress on you. It is normal that you need to let it out every now and then." She took off his glasses to clean his face. "Would you talk a little more, or would you rather rest? Both will be perfectly fine."

"I prefer to talk, I don't want to think about this again if I can avoid it." He was going to move, but Narcissa fixed his position in her lap. "What else do you want to know?"

"Did they do something else to you? In any other way?" She really hoped the answer was no, please god let this child catch a break.

"No, not that I remember at least. Uncle Vernon threatened me with that. Often saying that if I didn't stop being so useless, he would just have to sell me to some of his colleagues for a couple of hours. I really don't know if he ever did it, because I passed out for a couple of days sometimes. But I don't believe it because Aunt Petunia wouldn't have liked him bringing people like that to her house in case they were thinking of doing something to Dudley." He never really thought about that, he prefers not to consider it much "And Dudley has been groping me and things like that since last year because of puberty I suppose. But that would be everything, it has never escalated."

  
"Does anyone else know about this?" Narcissa was not satisfied with that answer, but it was the best Harry could give them.

"Dumbledore knows a little... at the end of my first year, after everything that happened with the stone, I begged him not to send me there. I told him that they were going to kill me now that I knew about magic. He told me that I had to go back" he remembered when Dumbledore explained to him about the blood wards. Harry spoke with a little bit of anger and bitter humor, "last year he explained that it was because of blood wards. Said that because Petunia took me in, she sealed the charm he put on me. Even if she did it grudgingly, and didn't love me at all, as long as her house was my home it would be the best protection for me

"What stone?" Lucius asked.

"Blood ward? That's ridiculous, those need a strong emotional connection with the family. Her taking you in could seal the spell initially, but if there was no love, the spell would disappear immediately." Severus added with his poker face in place, but deeply disturbed by everything he just listened to "You didn't know about magic?" 

  
"The sorcerer's stone" he answered automatically " that is what he told me at least. I don't really know much about it. No, I didn't know I was a wizard or about magic until I got my letter. Well, until Hagrid gave me my letter. Uncle Vernon tried as hard as he could to prevented me from receiving it."

"All right honey, that's enough for today. We'll talk about those ward and the sorcerer's stone at another time. You need to rest." She sent her husband and Severus a warning look so they wouldn't press for more now just in case. None of the men seemed to be listening anymore.

The adults slowly left the room to the kitchen. Narcissa was the last to leave, she put Harry in bed and kissed him on the forehead.

"Rest dear, you did very well today." She smiled and closed the door.

"Hi" Harry said after a few minutes of silence turning to look at Draco.

"Hi," putting some of Harry's hair behind his ear, "how do you feel?"

"Fine I guess. At least I won't have to think about that until next summer ... " He was tired even after sleeping almost all day.

"Are you thinking of returning there next summer?" Draco was horrified of the idea.

"I have no choice, Dumbledore forces me to go there every summer. I have no say on this." Harry sighs.

"Well, clearly he is too incompetent to make that decision." He was furious with the headmaster, how could a man in charge of a school not care if a child is begging him for help? Even if the blood wards were on the house, what good is it if the family inside the wards kill him first? Harry should have been monitored from the beginning. They should have taken him out of there at the first sign of abuse. "Don't worry, you won't go back there ever again. I am sure father can do something to avoid it. Mother will not let you go easily. I think she already adopted you in her head."

"What?... what could your father do to avoid that. " Blushing a little " she is very kind."

He consider that with the current situation. The options were minimal, but he did find one that could work. "He can make an appointment with the goblins to legally emancipate yourself. That way no one can force you to return to your family since you would legally be an adult. But first you would have to take your lordship and that can be a bit dangerous ..."

"What is that and how can it be dangerous?"

"Lordship means that you, as the next heir, take the title of head of the family. In your case I have the certainty that you would have the title for the Potters and the Blacks. I am not completely sure of any other branch of your family." Draco explained wondering how much Harry knows about the magical world, taking into account how he was raised. "It is dangerous because it is a lot of magic to accept, and controlling it can be too much for your magical core. That is why normally most people do not take them until they are of age and have their inheritance."

"So, if I can handle the lordship thing, I won't have to go back there?" A little skeptical, it sounded too easy.

"Yes, legally you would be an adult. Of course you would still need to go to school and follow their rules inside the castle. But outside of that no one can tell you that you are obliged to go to that house. You can go through your family's properties to find your own place to live"

"Do you think your father would do that?" He was liking this more and more, although he didn't want to get his hopes up yet.

"We could ask him tomorrow morning, now you need to sleep you look horrible." He smiled at the weak glared he received.

"Thanks, now stay still, I'm tired." Harry curled up beside him and fell asleep almost immediately. Draco wasn't tired yet, but was happy to stay by his side.

The adults were drinking heavily in the kitchen, trying to deal with the guilt they had. They were the adults, they should have done more and paid more attention.

  
Remus could not believe that he did not go check for himself that Harry was well. That he blindly believed Dumbledore every time he told him that Harry was happy and well taken care of with his family. 

Severus now knew the extension of the things that Harry endured. This including what happened during the years at school to some extent, now more than ever he had trouble understanding how he didn't see everything before. A child who went through all that abuse should have shown more signs. He fears that he did show them but he refused to see them out of hatred.

Even Narcissa and Lucius knew that they had not been helpful. Lucius with the diary, he doesn't know what it did or what it caused but he knows it was dangerous for Harry and the young Weasley girl. Narcissa now realizes how the little stories that Draco told them about the school, even though they were vague, they could let her see how Harry didn't seem to have self preservation. It was as if he thought no one would care if he died.

They all kept reflecting on their own guilt for hours until late into the night. They did not talk to each other. They all understood that this was something they had to weigh what they did and did not do by themselves.


	4. Gringotts Wizarding Bank

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer than the other ones. I got a little carried away, hope you like it :)

The next morning Draco hoped to wake up with a cuddly Harry in his arms. Instead he woke up in a cold and empty bed. He got up looking for the other boy but couldn't find him in the rest of the rooms or in the bathroom. He went to his last option, the kitchen.

Harry was cooking what smelled like pancakes. He could also smell fresh tea and coffee, it made his mouth water. Draco sat at the table as quietly as possible. Harry didn't seem to notice him while humming some Muggle song and moving comfortably around a kitchen. Suddenly Harry put a plate of pancakes and a cup of tea in front of him.

"Morning, I hope you like it." Harry sat next to him waiting for the others to come down. "I didn't want to wake you up, I'm a bit of an early riser."

"This smells amazing," he tried a piece of food and moaned at the taste "this is so good. How did you do this?"

"Well it is quite difficult to fail at making pancakes." He blushed a little, nobody had congratulated his cooking before. They heard others coming down. Harry started putting the food on the plates "good morning."

"Morning cub, did you make breakfast?" Remus sat down where Harry pointed and soon there was a plate in front of him and some coffee. "Thank you."

"Aww dear, that is so sweet of you. It looks great" Narcissa smiled.

"I really love cooking, if it doesn't bother you, I wish I could do it here too ..." he ask shyly.

"I think that would be great. So far only Remus knows how to cook anything" Lucius said sounding grateful.

"And I don't know how to do much. I think we have eaten the same five things in recent weeks." It was decided that Harry would cook most days and Remus would do it if he didn't want to. Narcissa was really happy to learn new recipes. She loved learning to cook. It feels good to see her family happy for something she did.

"Father, I was going to ask, do you think it would be a good idea for Harry to be emancipated?" He decided to be a little frank about it, it would work better and it would be faster. "That way the headmaster could not force him to return to his relatives' house."

"It is a good idea now that you mention it. It would be the perfect way for Dumbledore not to have any power over him. The problem is it could be dangerous without his inheritance." Lucius answered after a few minutes of considering the question. "The risk is greater since he will be the head of two ancient and noble families."

"Inheritance?" Draco did mention something about that yesterday, but he didn't understand what they were referring to.

"Your magical inheritance, to be more precise, is the magic that your family has been accumulating for centuries. The older the name is the more magic they have. The lordship is one of the things that activates it or you will receive it on your 17th birthday when your magical core is prepared." Narcissa said a little worried that Harry didn't know about this even after being in this word since eleven. "The Potters and the Blacks are as old as the Malfoy's, so it is a significant amount of magic."

"Wow, and everybody has this inheritance?"

"Technically yes, but muggleborns and some half-bloods do not receive a significant improvement in their current magic levels because they do not have those years of accumulation behind their name yet. Although there are some exceptions of course, like your mother for example, she was a muggleborn but still had an extensive magical inheritance. Many people believe it's because they have blood from some pureblood line that disappeared at some point in time and manifested itself with them" Remus added. He always found it fascinating how magic can be always traced back to a couple of core families that branch, out later losing their original name. 

"Honey, how much do you really know about your lineage and the details of our world?"

"Not much, I never really tried to learn. It seems a bit useless to me if it is likely that I will die before finishing school." Harry has always thought this way, he does not see the point of learning something he does not have much time to enjoy and understand. He has only concentrated on surviving and at least trying to marvel at this world as much as he can in the time he has.

"What makes you think that?" Lucius asked him. He did not like the calm tone he used, as if this was a well known fact to which he had already resigned himself. As true as his assumption may be, it is not right for a teenager to have that kind of certainty that he will die young.

"I have a very powerful mass murder trying to kill me. It does not seem far-fetched to think that he will eventually succeed. It is just an incredible mixture of dumb luck and a miracle that I have survived to this point." He shrugged, it seems quite logical to him. "He is an older well trained wizard, I am a teenager with a somewhat mediocre education on how to defend myself."

"You may have a point" admitted Severus "it might be a good idea to train you correctly now that the situation has changed."

"Really?" Harry was surprised, people usually go out of their way to keep him unprepared and uninformed.

"That will be a conversation for later, Lucius, when can you make the appointment at Gringotts?" She quickly said, she still didn't want to talk about the war.

"I will send a letter today. It may be ready for tomorrow morning."

"That would be perfect" Narcissa said while waving her wand to clean everything.

The rest of the day was quiet, all of them wanting to regain some normality. A second bed was added to Draco's room. Draco was a little disappointed, he liked sleeping with Harry the night before. But he didn't push, they were just beginning a friendship. Perhaps in the future that could change to a relationship, but for now this was good.

The two were in the garden most of the day talking about everything under the sun. One of the first issues they addressed was actually their other friends. Draco was happy to talk about Pansy and Blaise, they have been his best friends practically since they were born. He missed them a lot, since his family escaped he has not been able to communicate with them more than a few short notes. They know that he is well and alive. Crabbe and Goyle were his friends for his name and his supposed ties to the Dark Lord. He really didn't know what would happen now that they know the truth.

He was surprised to learn that the golden trio had apparently separated. Harry did not tell him many details about the fight, but he knows that both the Weasel and Granger had deserted him before the whole debacle with in the ministry. How can you spend almost five years with a person, being as close as they seemed, and abandon them? That is something that can be expected from a Slytherin, not a Gryffindor. Even they would have problems in separating from the person if they spent as much time as they did with them.

Harry loved talking to Draco, he was impressed by how different the boy was without his Malfoy mask. He was so expressive and passionate when he talked about his friends, he couldn't wait to meet them. They sounded fun and different from the people he had met until now in the other houses. When he talked about Hermione and Ron, Draco didn't ask for the details even when he was quite vague with the information he gave him. They had been horrible, he could not believe these people he trusted with his life would abandon him like they did.

**• ——————— • ——————— •**

"That's it, I'm done this is not worth it!" Ron shouted after receiving his first detention with Umbridge.

"I agreed with you, this is enough. I do not want this to be on my record" said Hermione after wiping the blood from her hand.

"What are the two talking about? Do you want to dissolve the DA?" He asks a little surprised by the sudden change, they were the ones who had the idea in the first place.

"No, we mean you. It was fine just being your stupid friend and putting up with your whining. But I refuse to put myself in danger again, first year was more than enough, and now a bloody scar?! I'm done" Ron said a little annoyed.

"What... what are you talking about?" Not believing what he was hearing, this had to be a horrible joke.

"We are tired of being your friends you bloody idiot. Why would we want to be with a whiny git like you?" Ron said laughing and continued in a mocking imitation "Oh I'm famous poor me, I have a fortune and good name oh the horror."

"Are you really so naive Harry? We have absolutely nothing in common. This was fun at first, but this is too much. I'm tired of sacrificing my education for these useless adventures and having to deal with your emotional problems, it's just too much" Hermione said coldly.

"You can't be serious? I thought you were my friends."

"Why would we be? We are always in your shadow and we just get in trouble constantly. Why would we stick around someone like you? You are not even interesting, you are the most boring person I have ever met. Even Percy is more interesting to talk to than you" Ron said. "It's just a matter of time before we get killed thanks to you. Look at Cedric, he barely talked to you. He couldn't be with you for more than a hour and he got killed."

"I have wasted so many hours doing research for all of your little adventures. It's ridiculous, I don't want to be involved in all of these problems any longer" Hermione added "I'm sorry Harry, but you are on your own."

After that they started to scream at each other. Well, Ron and him were screaming. Hermione just left saying she didn't need to stand around with two idiots now.

**• ——————— • ——————— •**

After the fight he felt empty and useless. It hit him hard, to know that the people he trusted the most in the world didn't care for him in the least. His mental state was already bad before, this only pushed him closer to the edge... who knows what he could have done if it had not been for Luna and Neville. They both entered to the Room of Requirement shortly after Ron left. They sat beside him without asking questions. Neville put his hand on Harry's shoulder while Luna caressed his hair _"their hearts are full of Gnibus, one day they will realize"_ she said in her usual dreamy voice. They were there comforting him for hours, and after that night they were constantly helping him in everything they could. He owes them entirely.

He felt relieved when Fred and George hugged him a couple of days later and said " _you are our only brother without red hair, you are irreplaceable._ " He was glad not to lose them. He adored the twins. Harry was surprised to receive letters from Charlie and Bill, they were not very close, they talked sometimes and he admired and respected them a lot. They said they were ashamed of their younger brother and wanted him to know that they would support him if he needed them.

Some time later the twins told him that the Weasley family had been estranged for a long time. Everyone had problems with the attitude of their two youngest members, both were too spoiled and their mother refused to see that they were going astray. It was a miracle Ginny wasn't pregnant yet with how irresponsible she was about taking care of herself. Ron was so dumb their mother would need to pay someone to hire him once he graduated. 

Mr. Weasley stayed on the sidelines because Molly didn't let him discipline them as he had done with his other children. He had almost no input in their upbringing. That is why the twins said the family and the marriage were getting worse and worse. They had almost no relationship with their mother once they managed to get out of the house, it was the same for Bill and Charlie. All of them felt closer to him than their younger siblings.

The appointment with the bank was set early in the morning. This way they had time to get a couple of things from Diagon Alley. Narcissa wanted to buy him a new wardrobe and fix his eyes. He was willing to follow her after how sweet she had been with him, even though he was not enthusiastic about buying clothes.

The morning was quite calm. The adults considered using a glamour, but it would be troublesome to have it on the whole day and having them divided their efforts for Draco and Harry. They end up deciding to use constant vigilance. 

Despite the time there was a considerable amount of people in the alleys and at the bank. Fortunately no one seemed to be paying attention to them. They went straight to the main desk, the goblin looked at them as he left his glasses on the desk and before Lucius could speak Harry stepped forward smiling brightly at the goblin.

"Good morning Griphook, how have you been? " the Goblin smiled at Harry as well.

"Good morning to you too Mr. Potter. I have been very well, will I assume that you have been in good health?" The goblin responded, this was the first time any of the others had seen a polite conversation between a goblin and a wizard. Goblins usually didn't like wizards.

"I have been fine, thank you"

"Are you coming to hear the will of Lord Black and Lord Potter? We have been requesting your presence for a month." He said once he got a form with the previous notification.

"They had a will?" This was the first time he heard about it. "Well no, I'm sorry but I'm not currently receiving any mail sir, I didn't know you had requested me here."

"Yes, Mr. Potter, they had a will. Oh that's unfortunate. We will need a notification of when you will receive the mail again," writing a note that will fly to another place in the bank "then what would bring you here, Mr. Potter?

"Well, I really don't know how to ask." He looked at Lucius, just now noticing the stunned expressions of the others. He raised an eyebrow not understanding their expressions.

"We were looking for official emancipation for Mr. Potter" He spoke regaining his composure and after thinking about it for a moment he added "and it may also be a good opportunity to hear the wills."

"If Mr. Potter allows you to be in the hearing then it would not be a problem. On the issue of emancipation, we would need to check the capacity of his current magical core before he can sign the forms." He looked at Harry for an answer.

"I don't care if they listen to it" Harry answered after considering it briefly. He was excited to know that his parents had a will, that never crossed his mind considering how young they were when they died. It made sense that they had one, being in in the middle of a war and knowing perfectly well that death was a great possibility. Thinking of Sirius still hurt him too much, but he was a little curious when his godfather would have made a will with all the time he spent isolated after his imprisonment.

"Very well, then follow me." Griphook got up from his desk and began to walk.

They were taken to one of the rooms in the back that had a large golden door full of engraved patterns. Griphook touched a sequence of symbols to open the door. It was a large room decorated mostly with dark green and golden accents, the furniture was simple and cozy. He end up sitting in the middle of Draco and Remus with Narcissa taking Remus's side while Lucius and Severus sat next to Draco. Griphook searched through the archives until he found what appeared to be two pensieve memories. These had a strange charcoal color with small red specks.

"What are they?" Harry asks a little confused.

"The will of a wizard uses a concept similar to a pensieve memory. The only difference being that it is impossible for someone external to manipulate it since it is sealed with the blood of the people involved. That is what gives it the dark color" Remus explained. "This can only be opened by the blood of a family member. In special cases the wizard can put the name of another person, that way their blood would work as well".

"Mr. Potter, we need a couple drops of your blood for both this and the test of your current magic level, if you allow me to." Harry instinctively grabs his arm hiding it.

"Harry it's fine. They take it out with a spell that doesn't hurt." Remus smiles knowing that Harry developed a slight phobia of drawing blood. Harry takes a deep breath and extends an arm.

"Thank you Mr. Potter, we will start with Lord Black." The goblin proceeded to divide the blood by sending a little to another area of the bank and putting a drop in one of the bottles.

Suddenly, the room change to the study in Grimmauld Place. Sirius was sitting at the desk, this must be during the first war, he seemed to be only 20 years old with his long hair tied in a ponytail. He had no wrinkles and in general he was pretty good looking.

The house looks much better as well, cleaner and with more of a royal appearance, even at it's best it was still dark with a heavy environment. Sirius did not fit at all with the house.

"Well, I guess I have to do one of these things, even if it's useless because I'm not going to die any time soon. I guess it's not a bad idea to do it in case Moony finally snaps and kills me for stealing his chocolate." He smiles at them while Remus rolls his eyes affectionately. "I want to leave Prongs and Lily the property that the Blacks have in Russia. I know that Lily is dying to visit and I think your little fawn will like the cold if the sudden craving Lily has for ice cream is something to go by. For Moony, I want you to have the house in the north of England. I know you will love it, it is simple but it is perfect for you. I also want it to have 5 million galleons, shut up you deserve it and you are not rejecting it. I can almost hear you being all humble saying that it was not necessary. I know the ministry has been even worse for you in the last year and I hope this helps you a bit while you settle down to find the job you love. Maybe you could start your own store. You always loved the idea of having a bookstore.

Remus laughed a little at the easy way he was distracted. Padfoot had many faults, he was immature and a bully for much of his years at school, with little perception of danger to others and himself. But he was always loyal and kind with them, he fought passionately with anyone who had a problem with him or with Peter. He became even more protective when he learned of his condition. He always looked after them in any way he could. Seeing him so young made him remember their school days. He can say with certainty that those were one of the best moments of his life, when they formed a small family among the four.

"For Wormtail, I want you to have a property in France for you and your mother. I know that the years after graduation have not been easy for you with her health deteriorating so much. But they say that a change of air can help her, especially with how things are going here ..." for the first time he seems worried but almost immediately he shakes it off to come back to the same carefree attitude from before. The mention of Peter left a bitter taste in the mouth of Remus and Harry. "I want him to have 5 million galleons as well"

"Finally, but the most important of all for my future godson. I want him to have everything else that the Black family can offer him, the title, the properties and the vaults, in addition to what I have in my personal vault too. I can't wait to finally meet you, It will be a lot of fun to see you grow up and teach you how to drive each professor crazy and make you a little Marauder. " He looks at them directly with an expression between sadness and content "But if you are seeing this, it means that I didn't make it. It is okay, I will always be around in one way or another. Let's be honest, if someone could drive death crazy enough to allow them to return to life it would be me. I want to be buried in Godric's Hollow next to Reggie's memorial. I don't want him alone anymore. For everyone I mentioned, you have been the best family I could ask for and I will be waiting for you on the other side. Take all the time you want. No need to hurry."

He gave them a genuine smile and the image of the room disappeared. Griphook silently asked for the papers for Remus and Harry to sign later and waited for them to tell him to continue. They were in a tense silence for a couple of minutes. They let Remus and Harry grieve for a little while and process the information.

Harry felt that he was going to hyperventilate. The guilt he felt for his death was crushing him more than he thought, It was almost the same feeling he had on the night Sirius fell through the veil. although his mind understood that it was not his fault and that it was just an accident a small part of him will always feel that he killed him. Now the guilt was mingling with sadness and longing. He could not bear all these emotions right now. He did the only thing he could, he pushed all the feelings away and forced himself not to recognize their existence.

"Harry, are you okay to continue?" Draco asked softly, grabbing the boy's hand to give him something to keep himself grounded.

"Yes, I think I'm fine" he smiled weakly, his eyes were duller.

"You want to continue then?" the goblin did the same process with the next bottle leaving them alone while collecting the studies that were done in Harry's blood.

This one took them to a small baby room, there were toys scattered everywhere and the whole room was light pastel colors. In the middle were Lily and James Potter, both looked quite different from Sirius even though they were almost the same age. It showed that both had more weight on their shoulders, both of them looked exhausted.

"Are you ready Flower?" James asked.

"As ready as I can be" they smiled at each other and James took her hand "We will begin this testament with the most important issue for us, Harry's custody. We both refuse to believe that Harry is dead, so we will continue as such."

"We would like Sirius Black and Remus Lupin to take care of Harry, and if for some reason they are not capable of this, we prefer Frank and Alicia Longbottom." When Harry heard the voices of his parents he automatically began to shake and tightened his grip on Draco's hand. The little amount of times he got to hear their voices before it wasn't in the best of circumstances.

"I would also like to add Severus Snape as a third option" said Lily surprising everyone.

"Love, are you sure it's a good idea?" James said a little nervous.

"I know Severus would take good care of him, you know he is not a bad person" Lily smiled at him reassuring. "I don't care if Lucius said he is a Death Eater, I know Severus has a good heart. He will educate Harry well."

"Okay love if you're sure of this, he will be part of the custody options." He didn't look completely convinced with the idea but he knew it was useless to discuss this.

"Please, under no circumstances will you send Harry to my sister Petunia Dursley. Please send him to any other place, even the orphanage is a better option" Lily said a little hysterically when thinking about that possibility. "Dumbledore knows about this condition, but we are not sure that he will follow our instructions."

"Calm down Darling, he won't go there" at that moment there was a soft cry in the background. Immediately Lily got up taking a six month old Harry from his crib. He looked chubby and extremely adorable while holding unto his mom while he was hugging a little stuffed snake. "Look who woke up from his nap, how is my little sunshine?"

Harry looks for James's voice. As soon as he finds his father, he smiles and starts making grabby hands for James to cuddle him. Both parents had the softest smile on their faces when James got up and took Harry in his arms snuggling him in his chest. Lucius and Narcissa laughed a little at the nostalgic scene, being more familiar with it thanks to Draco.

"This is not fair. I brought him into the world, why he always prefers you when he wakes up" she glared at him even though she kept smiling.

"Because he has an incredible taste of course." He laughs at the unimpressed expression he received. "And most likely he likes to be on higher ground."

"Why did I marry you?" She rolled her eyes and playfully hit his arm.

"That is a mystery to all of us" winking at her while Harry entertains himself with James's sweater and biting his toy. "Flower, I think we got distracted again."

"Oh right, the will. I guess the next thing to do will be to divide our things."

"Okay to start, Padfoot will receive my parents' cabin in London, also dad's book of charms and mom's poetry. For Moony he will have 10 million galleons and one of the houses in London. I prefer that you choose which house you like. We will not let you say no Moony please just accept what we want to give you." James smiles at him, putting the puppy eyes that he always used when he wanted to convince him to help in a joke.

"I also want him to have my research and book of ancient runes. I can't think of anyone better to continue the investigation" Lily added after rolling her eyes to her husband's antics.

"For Peter, we want to leave him the same amount of galleons as Remus in addition to that he can ask for everything he needs to pay his debts with the bank" James said smiling, though Lily did not look very comfortable with the mention of Peter.

"For my dear friend Severus I would like him to have our old albums, the blue moon pendant he gave me, and 5 million galleons" Lily smiled at him.

Severus was surprised. He did not expect to be even mentioned in this testament much less that she entrusted him with the custody of her child when they had already warned her that he had become a Death Eater. He felt like crying when he heard about the pendant, he thought she had thrown it in the trash after his mistake. That pendant was the first gift he gave her and it was an heirloom of the Prince family.

"I have wanted to talk with you for a long time about what happened, I did not want to lose your friendship and I hope that if you see this it is because we fix things between us Severus, I really hope we have"

"I would like to add to that, the research on potions Reggie and I did. It may not be much but it has many tricks of both families, you may know them all but it is always good to verify it." Lily is looking stunned at James, Severus felt the same way. "You may think that this is strange coming from me and it is understandable. I was horrible to you for many years and I never apologized for my behavior. I am very sorry for everything I did at school, it was something childish and I take full responsibility for my actions. I would prefer to talk to you in person but this is just in case I don't get the chance to."

"Where did that come from?" asks a dumbfounded Lily, she was happy but didn't understand when the change happened.

"Well, I understand that the things I did were terrible. I was wrong in this situation. I had no right to treat him that way just because I disagreed with his point of view or because I was jealous of his relationship with you" James said a little embarrassed.

"Who would say that James Potter could be mature?" She pinch his cheek.

"Hey, give me some credit, I've grown in recent years" he laughed.

"Thank God you did. I don't have the patience to raise two children yet" instinctively putting a hand on her stomach with a tiny smile of longing and a bit of sadness.

"sna'e! sna'e" Harry began to babble when he realized that his parents were not paying attention to him. He started making hissing noises to the toy snake.

"Aww our little Slytherin, can you imagine when she grows up enough to go to Hogwarts?" Lily asks smiling the boy who started crawling towards her as best he could.

"I think that is too far ahead love, I bet he will be a Gryffindor. You will be a lion like mummy and daddy, right sunshine?" James kissed him on the nose causing Harry scrunched his nose and giggle.

"My bet is on Slytherin, he loves snakes.He almost never grabs his lion" she started singing and play with Harry's hands "and he is already very good at manipulating Sirius and Peter. Haven't you noticed that he has then in the palm of his tiny hands? Soon enough Remus will be to."

"You have a point ... well Lucius did tell us a little about the unity their house had, maybe it wouldn't be so bad " James grabs the snake to play a little "and Reggie also said the same"

"Of course if Lucius says so you will believe him. Are you reliving one of your childhood crushes? Yes, Sirius told me about your little crush in our first year." She teased him laughing at his slightly red cheeks." I think you have a thing for Slytherin love, I mean you did date Reggie for two years, and before that you had this massive crush on Lucius."

"It is not my fault, he is bloody gorgeous and an excellent Chaser! And it's not like you don't fancy his wife, I remember very clearly how you drooled over her in our fourth year." He mocked the face of outrage she did.

"I didn't drool and she is beautiful, how could I not like her? My entire dorm room admired her from afar" she thinks for a bit, the adults were very amused by this little tangent "I think we both have a thing for Slytherin which is quite ironic if you ask me. We got distracted again we still have to speak about Harry."

"Oh, I forgot we were doing this again" James laughs and looks at them again while Lily took Harry to sing a lullaby.

"For our son Harry, we would like him to have everything that my family can offer, the titles, the properties and everything else. There is a special vault that is in Lily's name, I think you want to see what we keep there ..." James and Lily sigh looking at the baby in her arms. He looked so calm and happy, without understanding the evil of the world "the moment we knew you existed you became everything for us, we are sorry if we are not there to see you grow up. I hope you know that you are the best thing that happened to us. We are proud of you in every decision you make in the future, as long as you are happy we will be too."

"We hope you have a long and happy life, and that you always know that there are people who love you. Even if we can't be by your side physically, we will always take care of you, you are all our life" added Lily 

"To all or friends, thank you for being here with us and having been part of our little family. We love all of you and we will wait for you all in the veil."


	5. Lordship and Force Inheritance

Upon returning everyone was deeply in their own thoughts. Narcissa was trying to imagine what it would be like for them to have a baby and knowing that they could die before watching him grow up. They had Draco a little while before Harry was born, but she never felt that she was not going to survive. She always stayed out of the war to make sure of that. But she is not sure if she would have been able to have her Dragon if she had been in their situation ... she doesn't know if she would have been strong enough.

Having a baby is a challenge by itself. To have one when you are a young couple and in the middle of a war, it must have been a nightmare. All logic must have told them that it was a terrible idea, that they should have just ended the pregnancy... but they decided to go against all logic and have their child, love him for as long as they could and hope to live long enough to raise him.

Severus felt numb, in recent years he tried with all his strength to avoid thinking of Lily. He knew that the day he thought of her death his own guilt would suffocate him. However now after seeing her and hearing her voice again, everything returned to him. His days at Hogwarts were the happiest moments of his life, there is no doubt about it. The only thing that can be compared to them is the day his godson was born. But they also contain the worst mistakes of his life. It seemed so small at the time only a slip of the tongue caused by anger and shame. But it was so much more than that, it was the last drop of a friendship that was already going through problems.

Lily had always hated how the other Slytherin treated the muggleborns. Using them to practice non-lethal curses and some more sinister spells from time to time. She always reproached him for not saying anything for not trying to stop them they had many fight thanks to that. He never did anything because he honestly did not care much for them. He could understand the point of view of pure-blooded families, so he did not bother to defend them. The only exception for him was always Lily. He never saw her or treated her as he did with the other muggleborns. Until that day, the last time he used that horrible word and shouted at her to hurt her. He knew the moment he said it that it had been a mistake. She could have forgiven him for many things, but not using her blood status to insult her. Seeing her again reminded him of his mistake. It made him think how after that he began to make worse decisions until he was marked by the murderer of his best friend.

Draco stopped to think about Harry as a baby, he looked adorable, so full of wonder and happiness that it was heartbreaking to know how that happiness was taken from him. Leaving him alone in a house full of monsters. He cannot really imagine what it is like not to have a family, not always knowing where you came from, or knowing what peculiarities you share with your parents. His family for the outside world can be seen as cruel and cold, but that is only a facade for the public. In private his parents always showed him that they loved him in their own peculiar ways. But Harry did not have that same opportunity. He was abandoned in a house where he was only mistreated and who knows what atrocities he was told about his parents while growing up. Who knows how much he could really know about them before he entered the wizarding word.

"Harry ...?" His voice caught the attention of the other adults in the room, who now looked at Harry with concern. The boy did not look good, his face was as white as paper and he had an indecipherable expression on his face, his whole body was shaking .

In a matter of seconds everyone was thrown to the opposite wall when hit by a wave of wild magic. The whole room began to be covered with frost and ice, their limbs were getting numb from the cold and a terrible pressured settle in their chest that made it hard to breath. This was not ordinary accidental magic. Usually accidental magic is mainly impulsed by anger or in more special cases it can be created for joy. It did not usually happened after the age of 11 or 13 at the most. This one was created from pure sadness, this was a sadness that ran deep enough that his magical core could not contain it only in his body.

Harry knew something was happening around him. He knew that he lost Draco's warm hand that was keeping him grounded before, but he was not fully aware of anything else. He felt completely alone, just as he felt all his childhood with the Dursley talking to the spiders in the cupboard wishing that at least they were his friends.

Seeing his parents and Sirius hit him harder that he expected. He suddenly found himself imagining the life he could have had if Voldemort had not chosen him as a rival. If only he had been born a month before, he could have parents who love him and a Godfather who adored him even before he met him.

All his life he wished something different. He hoped to have a family like any other child instead of one that hated him for existing most days. When he was introduced to the magical world he thought that he could perhaps get one, or at least he would get a place to fit in finally. Instead he only got a world that expected perfection from him. A world that hoped he would follow the same legacy of courage and achievements of his parents, people he didn't even know what they looked like and barely knew their names most of his life.

He could not contain the sorrow that was corroding him now. All he could think of was in their last moments. His mother's screams, the noise of his father's body falling lifeless to the ground, and the face Sirius had while falling into the veil. Their corpses looked at him shouting that they could have been alive if he had not been born in the first place, that their deaths were all his fault.

"Harry!" Draco saw that the ice in the room began to cover Harry's body. He tried to approach but an invisible force did not let any of them get close to him.  
  
"We can't reach him ... I've never seen a barrier like this" said Remus terrified. Severus and Lucius had gone to see if the goblins could do something, but the whole bank was in chaos. Even the bank was covered with ice, wizards and goblins were frozen in place like statues.

"Harry dear please, we need you to control your magic!" Narcissa screams desperately trying to reach him somehow.

Draco felt that something inside him screaming to escape. This was a feeling he had before during the Triwizard Tournament. But now it was more present, he felt it under his skin, tearing it apart to get out of it. He was going to fight against it but instinctively he knew that this was going to help Harry somehow. He made the decision before even think about the consequences, he allowed whatever he was feeling go, letting it do what it was needed.

His body felt as if they were taking every muscle and bone in his body and tearing it apart. It was the worst pain he had in his life, he wasn't even aware he was screaming. He could only concentrate on the pain.

The adults watched in panic as Draco fell to the ground after giving an ear piercing scream. Narcissa and Lucius ran to him right away but they stopped dead in their tracks when they felt a magic field around their son. Nobody knew what the hell was happening. 

In a matter of seconds the image of Draco on the ground had changed leaving in his place a huge tiger. Their heads barely reached the joint of the animal's shoulder, the fur was pitch black with blood red lines all over it. The creature got up and gave a loud growl causing them all to retreat feeling in danger.

Harry looked up at the growl, he didn't feel it like the others had for him it wasn't something to be afraid of. It was more of like a gentle request to approach him. His magic reacted before he did, letting the big animal into the barrier he created. The animal stood in front of him, lowering his head to Harry's level of vision. His size could be scary but his eyes looked so warm and gentle. Something primal in him felt that he would be safe with the creature, that he would take care of him and drive away the grief. No one dared to move when the tiger settled around Harry letting him curl up in his fur.

"Can anyone explain what just happened? What the hell is that thing?" Lucius asks, baffled by all this.  
  
"That creature is our Dragon, dear" Narcissa said in disbelief.

"There is no creature blood in the Malfoy line or the Black line, how is this possible?" Well that was not completely true, his family did have some Veela blood somewhere in their line, but this was certainly not a Veela.

"I don't understand it either" they looked at Remus to see if his extensive knowledge of magical creatures could help.  
  
"This is not a creature that I have seen before, no book has made reference to a tiger of this size and fur like that" Remus said.

After a couple of minutes the shield surrounding Harry and Draco fell. The adults approached them slowly as a precaution of whether Draco was in a more primitive state of mind due to his current form.

"Dragon, is it really you?" Narcissa asked, the creature only looked at them before nodding, confirming that they were not a danger to him or Harry. "Is there any way you can come back to yourself dear? You are a little too big for this room now."  
  
Draco was not sure how to return to normal but decided to try the method that the animagus's used in their first transformations. He concentrated on every part of his body, every shape and feeling. Little by little he started to feel like himself. Draco's body looked different once he returned to his human form. He seemed to be taller and with more muscle, more cat like in a strange way. The feeling of his magic had changed as well, it seemed to be stronger and predominant in him. Harry was clinging to Draco as if life depended on it, even with the change of form he hadn't let go.

"Can you explain what just happened? Did you become an illegal animagus?" His godfather asked in the angry tone he usually uses in class when the students had already fed him up for the day.

"I don't know what happened. As far as I know I have not done the process to become an animagus." He was worried about this, he could feel that his body was different as a human and that was definitely not part of the transformation of a normal animagus. "I knew that Harry was distraught and I needed to get to him in some way, something in me wanted to leave so I let my magic do what it needed ..."  
  
"That was incredibly dangerous Draco, Potter was already having a case of wild magic letting your magic do what it wanted could have turned out badly." Severus told him, he felt a little hysterical for not knowing what was happening. "What I don't understand is how is it that you became that creature and why did you growl like that out of nowhere?"

"It sounded aggressive but Harry's magic responded to that by letting you approach him" Remus added. "It makes no sense, Harry's magic should have rejected you if you were a threat."

"It was not a threat ..." Harry spoke, his eyes were red for crying and he was still holding Draco with all his strength. "He was asking me permission to get closer..."

"I think it was a threat to you but it wasn't for Harry. I'm not sure why but I didn't want any of you to get close to him." He started to stroke the boy's hair to calm him down, he was still a little shaky.

  
"I'm sorry." Harry looks at the room that was completely destroyed and still covered with ice "I didn't know this could happen."

"It's fine cub we underestimated how hearing these things could affect you, and we certainly underestimated the extent of your magical potential. This was not your fault" Remus told him gently, in that moment Griphook came in.

"Mister Potter, may I ask how are you feeling? " the goblin asked while analyzing the damage in the room.

"I'm a little tired but I think I'm fine, I'm sorry for the trouble." He smile weakly while Narcissa ran a couple of spells to check his magic levels.

"It;s alright Mister Potter, no real harm was done. I'm glad to hear you are doing better" he gave him something that could be called a smile and wavde his hand repairing the damage. "Are you feeling well enough to accept the lordship of your houses?"

"I think I'm fine. I'm just a little bit tired."

"Potter, you just had a fit of accidental magic. You are in no condition to take that now." said Severus pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Actually... his magic level is stable, the fatigue should not last even for one hour in my opinion" Narcissa said surprised. "It's not even remotely dangerous."  
  
"Then can I do it?" Harry asked, blushing when Draco helped him get up to sit him back in his lap.

"Yes, you are in perfect condition to take your lordship now" Narcissa responds.

The others returned to their seats, conveniently ignoring the way the teenagers had decided to sit. Griphook conjured a wooden box and put it in front of Harry, inside this box there were seven rings. Each had a different symbol in the front, some of them seem familiar for Harry.

"These rings represent the lordships in your name. On your father's side you have the titles of the Potter, Peverells, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff families." They all gasp at the mention of the Hogwarts houses, this was news to everyone. "On your mother's side you will get the titles of the Slytherin and Ravenclaw families and finally thanks to your godfather you have the title for the Black family."  
  
"This is too much, it is impossible for someone to take so many. Even if they were of age it would be impossible" argued Severus.

"For what the analysis told us, Mr. Potter should in theory be able to do this" the goblin responded ignoring Severus in favor of speaking to Harry. "Mr. Potter I need you to sign these forms, just say that you take responsibility for the name of these families and any heir that comes from them"

Harry read the papers carefully, the only thing he learned from Uncle Vernon was to always read the contracts before signing them. They were normal documents that said he was the legal head of this house and that he assumed the responsibilities that this entailed as the goblin had summed up previously. He was worried about not being able to handle so much magic at once. But it was the only way to finally free himself from his relatives and have all his magical potential could only help him against Voldemort. He made the decision to sign everything, one by one he put the rings on his fingers.

It was a strange sensation, in his life he had experienced many types of pain both muggle and magical. This was very different, it was like his body was being melted and remolded multiple times. He tried to scream but no sound came out. After what for him felt like hours, everything went black.

Narcissa jumps into action immediately and checks his vitals. She's relieved when she sees that everything is fine and that his body is only readjusting to the new magic.

"Everything seems to be fine, his body is adjusting to the new magic perfectly" Narcissa said so everyone could breathe again. "I think he should gain consciousness in an hour or so."  
  
"Mr. Malfoy, as you may have noticed, you have forced your inheritance out. This means that you are also able to take your lordship if you wish to do so. If this is what you would like to do, inform me as soon as possible" the goblin leaves them in the room.

"So that's what happened, I forced my inheritance" Draco said. "What do you think father?"

"Well, that's a good explanation for that. The problem is that we don't have creature blood in our families and I've never seen that creature before ... I don't understand how it could become part of your inheritance" Lucius said thoughtfully. "I think that it will be a good idea to assume your lordship. Even if you will not assume the position of head of the family yet, it will still be beneficial for you to assume at least part of your responsibilities."  
  
"I think the same Dragon, it's normal for the Malfoy family to have multiple lords" his mother said as she stood up to inform the goblins.

The process of his lordship was quick and easy with his inheritance already acquired. The goblin which Harry seemed to get along was kind enough to bring them water and something to eat, after an hour Harry began to move again.  
  
"Water ...?" he said hoarsely.

"Here drink this" Remus brought the glass to Harry's face and he drank greedily. "How do you feel cub?"

"Everything hurts." Severus came over and gave him a muscle relaxant potion.

"This should help with pain at least temporarily. Your body will continue to hurt for a few days until the new magic settles completely" Severus explained.

"Thanks... "He closed his eyes. He felt weak and dizzy but the potions were working.

"Do you want to go back home dear?" Narcissa asked relieved that Harry seemed safe.

"No, I'm okay. The potions are working. I will feel better in a few minutes" Harry smiled at her. "Also you had planned to do other things after this."

"But we can do them on another occasion dear. Your health is more important than shopping."

"I'm fine, I promise. Just little weaker than usual." Something came up to mind suddenly. "Miss do you think we can go to a store before going for the rest of the things?"

"Call me Narcissa or Cissa dear" she corrected him gently. "Of course what would that be?"

"Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, I want to visit Fred and George. They must be worried about the lack of letters." He could see the face of disgust that Severus made but he chose to ignore it.

"Well I do not see why not." She gave another quick check up before allowing him to get up. "Come on dear, it is almost time for lunch."

Harry found Griphook to say goodbye before everyone picked up his things and left the bank,. The streets were much fuller now and everyone was more alert of their surroundings. They decided to put on a small glamour. Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes stood out among all the other stores, even on the outside it exuded energy and color.

The interior was crowded with mostly teenagers. It had a certain controlled chaos with products jumping or flying throughout the place, it was an environment full of energy and colors from the whole spectrum. This was something that will only work for this store. 

Fred and George were in the center demonstrating one of their new products. They wore matching suits and as always the colors clash horribly with their hair, but the twins always had an innate confidence about them that pulled off the look. Harry stepped forward once he saw that they were both free, he touched George's shoulder to get his attention.

"Good morning, how ..." George started.  
  
"Can we help you today?" Fred continued.

"I was wondering if you had something to turn teddy bears into spiders?" He was pretty sure the twins would recognize him with that. Fred and George looked at each other for a few seconds before showing a mischievous smile.

"Well dear brother of mine, what do you say?"

"I would say we have but for how many?"

"For six people please" relaxing now that he was sure they knew who he was.

"Perfect follow us" they said in unison.

They were taken to the back room, it seemed to be the place where the tests were performed on the new inventions. As soon as they closed the door the twins grabbed Harry raising him from the ground with a hug.

"We were so worried when ..." Fred started

"We didn't receive any letter from you ..."

"Are you okay?"

"How is that you are here?"

"You said you would come to see us a month before returning to Hogwarts" the people who were not accustomed to the way the twins talk were getting dizzy from all the unfinished phrases.

"I'm fine, I'm sorry for not sending you letters you know I can't do it much when I'm there ..." he whispered hugging them too.

"We know but ..."

"We still worried when we don't know about you"

"Who would be our other guests?"

"Ahh ..." Harry wasn't sure what reaction this would have, but he was confident that the twins would give him the time to explain. "Can you all drop the glamour please?"

None of them were sure that this would be a good idea but there was no other option once they dropped the glamour the twins looked at them as if analyzing them and then looked at Harry for an explanation.

"They got me out of there, I don't have to go back to my relatives house again." Fred and George's eyes widened comically to then look at each other having a silent conversation.

"Nice to meet you Messrs. Weasley, I'm Narcissa Malfoy" she approached them stretching her hand.

"Look my dear brother, a beautiful lady who likes to meet us" George took her hand giving her a exaggerated bow and kissing her hand.

"Miracles do exist in this world" Fred did the same by grabbing Narcissa's other hand.

"Thank you for the compliment" Narcissa laughs.  
  
"I thought they would ask for more explanations than that" Lucius said.

"It's all we need to know" the twins said at the same time.

"If you got him out of there, it's enough to be good in our book" George said

"We've been trying since fourth year" Fred added. "We do need to know where you staying now Harry. We need to send you some things"

"Can I tell them?" He looked at the adults. He didn't want to impose anything, no matter how much he trusted the twins they didn't have the obligation to trust them too.  
  
"Why don't you both accompany us to lunch. Unless you are busy with your store?" Narcissa said.

"We could leave Felicity for the rest of the afternoon" Fred said.

"She is capable enough and it's not every day you can have lunch with four Slytherins" George answered.

Remus couldn't help laughing at the face of horror that Severus put on knowing that the twin terrors would be accompanying them. He was also sure that Severus would not contradict Narcissa.


	6. Diagon Alley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank to the lovely human clockwork_shadowhunter for the editing :3

The group went to "Odilon's Cauldrons" for a well-deserved lunch. The restaurant served French cuisine, and was small but elegant. Odilon's Cauldrons was almost empty, which made getting a table for eight quite easy. Fred and George were surprisingly comfortable with this strange group. Although they were spending most of the time catching up with Harry and Remus.

The Gryffindors at the table saw the menu and had absolutely no idea what any of the dishes were since the menu was written completely in French.

"Okay, I have no idea what any of this is," George finally said.

"I think I know some of this, Aunt Petunia likes it, but it's like three things," said Harry.

"J'aimerais passer la nuit avec toi. That's more or less all my knowledge of French" Fred said, the Slytherins laughed, "I don't even know what it means I forgot."

"Where did you learn that?" Draco asked, containing his laugh.

"Bill tried to teach us a little of the language. His fiance speaks it and well, that's all that I can remember. What does it mean?" Fred was curious now.

"I would like to spend a night with you" Draco responded.

"Well, you're a little young for my taste but for that pretty face I could make an exception," Fred winked and Draco blushed. The whole table started to loudly laugh.

"That's not what I meant. That's the translation of that phrase," Draco said hiding his red face. Harry patted his back sympathetically.

"Oh well, that's useful. I could get myself a French boyfriend."

"What a beautiful relationship that will make. You only know how to ask for sex."

"What else do I need?"

"Some would say an emotional connection."

"Overrated."

"Bill is engaged?" Remus decides to cut them of or they could go on the whole day.

"Yes, he announced it at dinner a couple of weeks ago. He is going to marry Fleur Delacour," George replied.

"Fleur? She was nice when I got to now her in the tournament." Harry liked Fleur. She hadn't been nice to him at first, with all the accusations of him cheating to enter the tournament, but after the second task she started to be extremely friendly with him. She even sent a couple of letters with her support last year. "How did your family react? Mrs. Weasley always talked about how much she wanted one of you to finally get married."

"Mom didn't react well." Both twins winced at the memory. "They ended up yelling at each other for an hour more or less, she doesn't approve of Fleur..."

"She does not like that Fleur is part veela. She is convinced that she is using her allure on him," Fred rolls his eyes "as if Bill were that incompetent as a curse breaker to not realize if she was doing it."

"That is dreadful" Narcissa said.

"Maybe, but it doesn't really matter. It was just another reason for Bill to cut contact with mom." George shrugged, they decided to order the food and change the subject for the moment.

The Slytherins ended up ordering for all of them, translating the dishes to at least give them an idea of what they would be eating.

The twins mixed perfectly with them after a while of speaking, but most of their attention was on their little brother and Malfoy. Both seemed to be strangely close now. They were sitting as close as possible, sharing their food, and giving small smiles every once in a while. It was completely different from the rival they saw last year. They usually hexed each other every time they were together, this was a bit odd. But the twins trusted Harry's judgment, and they loved watching him smile so much.

They decided to talk to Malfoy so he would know what would happen if he hurt their younger brother's kind heart. If his intentions were good, they would not interfere. Once they were full, they paid the bill and left to go to the healer for Harry's eyes.

It was a simple corner shop with a big sign that said "Mr. Wright's Optician." He was incredibly nervous, he had never gone to have his eyes checked before. His glasses were ones that Aunt Petunia found in a charity container and said, "They work well enough for him to do his housework." The place was painted in pastel blue for the most part, it had many different models of glasses on the wall.

"Welcome," came the cheerful voice of a man who was a little short, with dirty blond hair and a kind smile. "What do you need today?"

"Hello sir, we are here for him," Narcissa grabbed Harry and pulled him forward with her. "We want a permanent solution for his eyes, please."

"All right, come with me first I have to do a little check-up." The man took them to the next room and made Harry sit in a strange looking chair. "This spell will take about five minutes to check and see what condition his eyes are in. The next spell is to correct his sight, and will take another ten minutes. Is that okay with you, miss? "

"Yes perfect," everyone sat down except the twins whom grabbed Draco's arms and started to pull him away.

"We will be back soon, we want to buy a couple of potion ingredients," said George and they took Draco without explaining more.

"Are the twin terrors going to kill my godson?"

"Mmm, I don't think so. They seem to be smart kids, they would have too many witnesses," Lucius replied.

Draco did not understand why the Weasley twins kidnapped him. He tried to remember if he had offended them at school but could not remember anything and then it hit him. Harry, it had to be about him. Maybe they did not agree with Harry staying with them or they didn't trust him because of their history. He had to admit that it was suspicious to suddenly be kind to him after so many years antagonizing him. They took him to the dark alley next to the store.

"We're not going to hurt you, relax, we just want to talk," said one of them, maybe it was Fred?

"We noticed that you are very close,"

"to our lovely little brother."

"Yes, we fixed things between us. I apologized for my previous behavior," Draco said a little tense.

"What are your intentions with him?" they asked at the same time.

"My intentions?" Draco asked.

"We realized how close"

"you were during lunch today."

"You're not as subtle"

"as you would like to believe."

"We just want to make sure,"

"you don't hurt our little Harry." 

Draco relaxed and knowing what it was they wanted to know made it easy to answer. "I don't plan to hurt him, I promise. I just want to know him better" he smiled.

"That's all we wanted to know."

"At least Harry is smiling more now."

"And while he is happy,"

"we will support you." They smiled, but suddenly Draco had two wands on his neck.

"Just make sure you know,"

"if Harry stops being happy with you,"

"you will pay," they finished in unison.

"I understand" he raised his arms in surrender. He didn't feel bad about the threat, he was sure that Blaise and Pansy would do the same if they were in their situation.

They went back to the doctor's office. The healer was focused while muttering a couple of spells on Harry's face. The adults looked at up at their entrance briefly, but gave them no more attention than that.

"Close your eyes please and keep them that way until I tell you to open them." The doctor turned to them, "his eyes were in very bad condition. His current lenses were practically useless. Now this spell works just like muggle contact lenses and should last for many years. If you feel that your prescription no longer works, you will have to return to refresh the spell. But in general it should be better for a long while."

"Thank you sir, we are going to take that into account" Narcissa replied. They waited a couple of minutes until the doctor said it was safe for Harry to open his eyes.

Harry opened his eyes carefully when they told him he could. Everything was blurry around him at first, but little by little his eyes began to focus. He was surprised at how much sharper everything was and how the colors looked more saturated this way. It was much better that his glasses could ever do.

"How is it darling, better?" Narcissa smiles. Harry's face looks a little younger with his big doe eyes, it fits perfectly.

"It's amazing, it's really different now" looking in all directions excited.

"Well, young man, your eyesight was really damaged. It was almost irreversible, and those glasses were the wrong prescription for you," said the doctor, returning Harry's glasses. "When was your last check up?"

"I don't remember sir," he put on his glasses to try "wow, it really was bad."

"Technically those lenses are not an accurate demonstration, your eyes were in a worse state." The twin took them to play around with.

"Wow, how were you..."

"Able to play quidditch with these?" Draco grabbed them curiously.

"I'm a little offended that I never caught the snitch before you. You were almost blind." Draco scowled while everyone laughed.

"Enough, we have a lot to do today," Remus said amused. "How much does it cost, sir?"

"5 galleons and 15 sickles" the doctor said. Harry was getting the money he took from his vault but Remus paid before he could.

"Moony! That was not necessary!" Harry was always worried when someone spent money on him.

"Don't argue cub, let me spoil you from time to time please." He rolled his eyes affectionately, the pout Harry had was definitely the same as Lily always gave James when he bought expensive things for her.

When they returned to the center of Diagon Alley the twins had to return to their shop. The adults agreed to give them the address of the safe house to visit Harry or send him letters. Shortly after they left, Draco grabbed Harry's arm excitedly.

"Let's go shopping now, come." He has wanted to dress Harry for years, and if he can burn Harry's current wardrobe in the process it would be even better. "You need a new wardrobe as soon as possible."

"And if I don't want new clothes?" Harry said just to argue. He still enjoys bantering with the blond.

"Tough luck, you are getting one." Draco started to drag him while the other remained at a safe distance.

"Why do I feel like a doll?" Harry said flatly to the rest of the group.

"Oh yes, my Dragon tends to do that when he buys for someone." Narcissa gave Remus an overly sweet smile "dear, you also need new clothes and we are in the perfect place to find them."

"That really isn't necessary" Remus tried to argue but it was useless. Narcissa had already left to choose clothes for him.

"It is useless to resist them when it comes to clothes," Lucius said with a solidarity look. He had not been able to choose his clothes for years and he didn't have a bad sense of style to begin with. "it is easier to accept it."

They were shopping for around three hours, going to all the stores they could. In the end Harry and Remus were perfectly dressed and had many new clothes. They purchased everyday items to formal robes, even pajamas and underwear ended up added to the list. Harry was now dressed in black skinny jeans, a green t-shirt, and a jean jacket. It was all a little loose, but if Severus and Narcissa's treatment turns out as expected he should fill them out soon enough. Remus had simple black pants, a white button-down shirt, and a blue cardigan that now fit him perfectly.

"Is shopping always this tiring?" asked Harry.

"I remember that the only time I accompanied Sirius on shopping was like this," Remus replied.

"Now don't be a couple of babies, it wasn't too bad," Draco laughed at the tired expression. "You two just needed to try on the clothes. It's not that tiring."

"You picked half of the store," Harry whined.

"Your point?" Draco raised an eyebrow while Harry rolled his eyes.

"I hate you, I literally hate you. Now come with me to the pet store. I want to buy some treats for Hedwig." This time he dragged Draco to the store.

After finding the treats, he stared at the animals for a moment until Harry suddenly stopped dead, staring at a very dark corner of the store. It had a signal warning people not to pass.

"Harry, what happened?" The boy did not respond and only walked in the direction he was looking, the rest followed him just in case he got in trouble.

 ** _"Hello?"_** Harry called in Parseltongue, a chill ran through the spines of the adults who were listening to him for the first time. Draco tried to hide the blush of his own inappropriate reaction to the snake language.

 ** _"A speaker?"_** a snake looked in his direction, the snake was a beautiful silver with black eyes and green gem on her forehead.

 ** _"Yes, nice to meet you. I'm Harry, were you crying?"_** He knelt in front of the tank in which they had it in.

 ** _"I was... I miss the outside speaker. This shop is cold, and the owner keeps me in the dark away from the others"_** the snake sounded incredibly sad.

**_ "Why does he do that?" _ **

**_ "I was the only one of my kind, I'm too big and dangerous for buyers. That's what the owner said, so he put me here." _ **

**_"That's horrible ... do you have a name?"_** Harry asks, sure of his decision.

**_ "My nest mother called me Atreya _ _"_ **

**_"What a beautiful name. Atreya, would you like to come home with me?"_** he smiled.

 ** _"You would adopt me speaker?"_** she sounded surprised but happy.

**_ "Of course, if you want to go with me." _ **

**_ "Yes! I would love my master to be a speaker!" _ **

**_"Then it's done."_** He got up opening the terrarium and putting his arm inside so that the snake curled up his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. When Harry turned around he saw the shocked expression the others had.

"Harry, why is there a snake on your neck?" Remus asks.

"She is Atreya, I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. But I heard her cry because she isn't treated well here, so I'm going to adopt her."

"Is she poisonous?" Remus knew that look in Harry very well, so he didn't even try to stop him.

"I don't know, let me check." He looked at Atreya. **_"Are you poisonous?"_**

**_ "Yes speaker, but I will only bite those you ask me to, I promise." _ **

**_"I don't think it's going to be necessary but thank you."_** He looked at the others again, "yes she is poisonous, but promises to only bite the people I ask her to."

"I guess it's better than I expected." Harry was already going to the main desk.

"He's a parselmouth" Lucius said when Harry was out of earshot.

"I haven't heard him use it since his second year..." Severus responds, a little disturbed by the language. Most of Voldemort's followers could spend hours upon hours listening to him speak with Nagini, but he only got chills from it.

"Well, he is Lord of Slytherin. It's not a big surprise for him to also be a parselmouth," Draco said once he collected himself.

"You're right Dragon, it just took us a little by surprise" they catch Harry arguing with the seller.

"No sir, I don't want one of the other snakes, I want this one. Please, would you be kind enough to tell me how much it is" he was a little irritated.

"But that is very dangerous for such a cute boy." The guy at the counter, who looked around the age of 19 with black hair and blue eyes, was clearly looking at Harry in an inappropriate light. "A cute kitty would look much better, don't you think pretty boy?

"How many times do I have to tell you no? I just want the price of this snake, please." He rolled his eyes and didn't realize the lewd way the guy was looking at him.

"Oh, this is a feisty one" the guy smirks and uses what was supposed to be a seductive voice. "Why don't we talk somewhere else, in a more private place?"

"Darling, is there a problem here?" Draco couldn't take it anymore, he wanted to kill this guy for looking at his Harry in such an lewd way. He didn't stop to think that technically Harry wasn't his.

"He doesn't want to give me the price of Atreya, he insists on selling me a kitten." Draco put a protective arm around his waist making him blush, he didn't understand why Draco called him darling, but he wasn't going to complain.

"Is that true sir?" He said in a neutral tone as his gaze promised the guy painful death if he kept insisting.

"I ... I'm sorry sir, but that snake is too expensive..." Now he looks a little scared.

"Money is not a problem, please tell us the price and do not waste more of our time."

"20,000 galleons."

"Now that was not so difficult, right?" He didn't even flinch at such a high price. "Would you rather I pay or you will, love?"

"Don't worry, I'll get it." He was surprised at the price, but he wasn't leaving Atreya there. "Can you also add the things I need to take care of her properly please?

The employee looked at them as if they were crazy, but said nothing anymore. He quickly collected the rest of the items they needed and used Harry's vault number for payment. They set off right away with the guy wanting to get them out of the store as soon as possible.

The adults started laughing as soon as they were outside. Draco decided to conveniently leave his hand on Harry's waist, the boy said nothing, so he assumed it didn't bother him.

"That was terribly unprofessional of him to flirt with a client," Narcissa said, still laughing a little.

"Flirting?" Harry was quite confused with who the guy was flirting with.

"Harry, did you not realize that guy was trying to flirt with you?" Remus asks.

"He was? I thought he was simply incompetent at his job," he said with a frown.

The group laughed at that again, but left the subject. They all returned to the house, it was already quite late. Draco was immensely pleased with the lack of interest Harry had in the store's seller.

Before going to sleep, Draco and Harry installed Atreya's terrarium in their room. Once she was comfortable, they both went to their respective beds for a quiet night's sleep.


	7. Nightmares

Harry found himself in a strange room that was dark and cold. He walked for a while until he found something familiar. In front of him it was the Mirror of Erised just as it was in his first year. He got closer, expecting to see his parents smiling at him, but instead he just found them watching him with hatred and disdain.

"And we gave our lives to save him? Look at how pathetic he is. He couldn't even defend himself from a bunch of muggles" James Potter said in a disgusted voice. Harry took a couple of step back startled, bumping into something behind him. He turned around immediately and looked at the familiar cemetery now surrounding him. Cedric's angry ghostly face was staring straight at him.

"At least you had the choice. I died for being beside him. He is a menace to everyone around him!" Cedric said with hatred cleared in his face.

"No no no no this is not real, it's not real!" he shut his eyes tightly. "Please go away, please go away." He slowly opened his eyes after some time passed to find himself in the middle of the Death Chamber. He was witnessing Bellatrix attacking Sirius again, and perfectly saw how the life was leaving his eyes. He tried to run to him but his body did not respond to him anymore.

"He killed me with shear stupidity! It was obvious I was not in the Ministry, how could I be?!" Sirius screamed now watching him next to the other three "of course Kreacher would lie. He hated my guts! How can you be that stupid!"

"Look at us! I carry you for 9 months and this is what you do to us? Killing us and your godfather?" Lily adds. 

"No no no no no! Please, I'm sorry, I didn't want this to happen. Please, I'm sorry!" He screamed hysterically.

A chilling voice laughs behind him making his blood run cold. Voldemort stood there and wrapped his skeletal arms around him tightly, "this is what will happen to everyone around you. Everyone you love is going to drop dead, one by one, and it will all be your fault" he whispers in his ear. Everything in Harry wanted to run, but his body simply wouldn't move. "I will kill everyone you love and it will be all your fault. If they hadn't met you they would survive." More and more faces started to appear to stand with the dead. From his friends, to students he passed by in the halls, to the faces in the news after an attack. "You can't save them, no matter how hard you try, you will never win."

"shut up that is no true, I didn't kill anyone! I'm sorry I didn't do it" Harry started to repeat hysterical.

The walls seems to be closing in, his vision is blurry from the tears. He can't even see their faces anymore, he has to just stand there and listen. Soon enough he curls up in a tiny space that he could barely fit into, incapable of breathing while Voldemort started to laugh. All the while the dead keep screaming his failures.

**• ——————— • ——————— •**

Draco was pleasantly dreaming about an angel like creature. Following it around a forest when he heard a quiet pained whimper. He wakes up immediately looking for the source of the sound, when he sees Harry tossing and turning in bed talking gibberish he couldn't quite understand. He jumped out of bed and started to try to wake Harry.

"Harry, it's a nightmare! Come on, wake up!" he shakes him "Harry! Wake up, please!"

He was starting to panic, Harry looked more distressed by the second. Harry was not waking up, and now he looked like he was suffocating. In a rash decision he cast _"Aguamenti"_ on Harry, that did the trick. Harry opened his eyes and instantly threw himself at Draco, sobbing uncontrollably, still not completely able to distinguish between reality and the nightmare.

Draco didn't know what to do, he was completely incompetent in the emotional department. Pansy even said she preferred to cry to a brick wall than him any day. He didn't want to make this worse... so he decided to go on instinct. He hugged the boy back, letting him settle in his lap while rubbing his back and whispering comforting words.

It took a while before Harry felt a little more himself. He was still shaking, but he had stopped sobbing at the very least.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked gently.

"No... it's just a stupid nightmare..." Harry said immediately, "I'm sorry for waking you."

"It's not stupid if it cause you distress" Draco said still rubbing circles on his back, "don't apologize, it's fine. Please tell me about your nightmare."

Harry fiddled around for a bit before speaking again. "It was about... my parents, Sirius, and Cedric. They were all screaming at me that it was my fault they died. Then Voldemort showed up and started to say that everyone I love will die by his hand, and it will be all my fault." He was crying again.

"Oh Harry" he hugged the boy a little tighter, "it's not your fault. You weren't the one that killed them, the Dark Lord is the one that decided to target you. It is not your fault."

"If I hadn't been born, they would all be alive right now," Harry mumbled, burying his head in Draco's shoulder, "If I just wasn't born..."

"Harry James Potter look at me now!" Draco said angrily, that startled Harry. "Don't ever say that again, you didn't kill anybody. The Dark Lord is the only guilty one here. He made the decision, not you, it's not your fault!"

"No one regrets your birth Harry, you even heard your parents say it. You were the best thing in their lives. No one blames you for the things he has done" Draco looked directly at Harry while saying all of this and he softened his voice by the end. The boy was stunned, his eyes red and puffy from all the crying he just did. In Draco's opinion, he was incredibly beautiful even like this. Gently, he wiped the tears away. "Don't blame yourself, you haven't done anything wrong."

"Thank you..." Harry said in a small voice, not yet ready to accept that, but he needed to hear it after that horrible dream. He just then noticed he was completely drenched and said in disbelief "did you?... did you throw water at me?" 

Draco blushed a little. " Ahhhh well, you were not waking up. I panicked." Harry just stared at him for a minute before he started laughing. All the tension in his body quickly melting away, maybe it was the stress, but he couldn't stop laughing. He was laughing so hard that Draco had to tightened his hold on his waist to avoid him falling to the ground.

"You are the first person to think of that solution," still giggling slightly while laying his head in Draco's shoulder.

"At least it worked," he smiled, unwilling to move at all. He adored having Harry in his lap, with the leg to either side of him and his head in the crook of his neck. "Do you think you can go back to sleep?" He used a quick drying charm on the other boy when he noticed a little shiver.

"I think I can..." he was falling asleep already, he grabbed Draco's shirt tighter. "Yes I .... think I can... please don't go," soon after his body went limp on top of Draco. Usually he couldn't fall asleep after a nightmare, but the warmth of Draco's body and his steady heartbeat relaxed him like nothing else.

Draco stayed in that position for a little longer enjoying the closeness before rearranging them in his own bed, Harry safely tucked into his side. Soon enough he fell asleep as well, content having Harry in his arms.

The next morning Harry woke up at the crack of dawn as he always did. He was very warm and comfortable in the bed. He abruptly remembered the events of the night before when a pair of arms tightened around his waist and he felt hot air in the back of his neck. He couldn't believe he had asked Draco to sleep with him. But after he comforted him and let him cry in his shoulder, he felt so vulnerable that he craved the safety he felt when Draco held him.

He tried to move out of his embrace but it was useless, the moment he moved, Draco tighten his arms to prevent it. He gave up fairly quickly. Draco looked so peaceful in his sleep. He looked softer around the edges, it made his heart beat faster. Gently he traced the other boys features with fascination. He stayed like that for a long time, just learning the small details of Draco's face until the other started to wake up.

"Morning" he said barely above a whisper.

"Too early," Draco pulled him closer looking very grumpy at waking up at this hour.

"I need to go and make breakfast," he was very amused by the whine he got in response. Thankfully he was able to escape Draco's arms and went to do breakfast for everyone and clean up a little, an ingrained habit at this point. He took Atreya from her tank and let her curl up on his neck, she was content to be with her master. 

A couple of hours later two owls flew in front of him just as the other members of the house went to eat. He was confused, he was sure one of the owls must be from Fred and George but where did the other one came from?

_Dear Harry,_

_I'm glad you're finally in a safe place. I didn't want to send you any letters before this just in case they could get you in trouble._

_Your life is about to take a turn, some special people will change your view of yourself and your place in this word. Hopefully you are ready to embrace this with open arms as changes are a beautiful thing in life if you choose to accepted them. Your instincts will not lead you astray if you follow them, they can lead you to place you belong._

_Do not worry about Neville and I, we are now together in my house. We will come to see you on your birthday._

_\- Luna_

Harry was not surprised that she already knew all of this. He was already used to Luna always knowing these types of things. Although he was a little curious about these people she mentioned. What could they know that would change his perspective? Life changing news was something common for him, he just let it go, he will know eventually anyways. He saw the curious looks from the others and he just decided to give them the letter.

"How does Lovegood know this place?" Draco asked, the girl always freaked him out. The aura around her was a little unnerving to him.

"I don't know, Luna just has her ways" he shrugs while reading the second letter.

_Dear Harry,_

_We wanted to talk to you about this yesterday but we didn't have the opportunity to be alone with you. The Order had a reunion a couple of days ago, they know about your disappearance already. Dumbledore was incredibly angry. He didn't say much, but he seems tense not knowing your whereabouts. He has most of the members looking everywhere for you. I wouldn't be surprised if he showed up where you are now to inform Snape and Remus. We don't know why they weren't there in the first place._

_Bill and Charlie are worried about your sudden disappearance. They are hoping it was on purpose because You-Know-Who is way too arrogant to actually kidnap you and keep it a secret for long. We will not tell them anything unless you let us don't worry about that, but please send them a letter when you think it's safe._

_Ron is being an arse about this, saying that you just disappeared for attention. He will regret all the crap he is saying about you, let's see if he likes having pink hair for the first month of term. Dad tried to scold him, but as always mum didn't let him. He is also worried sick about you. He wanted to talk to you when you came to our house or as soon as he can find you. Mum didn't tell him the extent of the fight with Ron, he was just told you had a small disagreement._

_Ginny is acting really weird recently. She is putting pictures of you all over her room now, and she sends letter asking for you daily,_ _her last boyfriend dumped her recently so she might want you as a replacement._

_We will come to see you on your birthday, take care of yourself little brother._

_— Gred and Forge_

He could barely stop the growl that wanted to escape his lips at the mention of the headmaster. "Dumbledore already knows I'm gone and Fred and George think he will come here and check."

"It was to be expected, we will have an explanation for this" Lucius say.

"An explanation I will love to hear," right there in the door threshold was the headmaster. He had the same smile he always had on but the usual twinkle in his eyes was gone. "Oh Harry it's great to see you are okay, we have the entire Order looking everywhere for you."

"I'm fine sir, thank you" he faked a smile.

"I see you are, can you please explain how are you here instead of your home?"

"I was in danger sir. As you already know, I'm not very liked in that house. My health was in danger so I escaped." He lied easily, he was not going to tell the headmaster that they went to pick him up, it will just cause trouble for the others.

"That was incredibly dangerous my boy. You know the circumstances for you to be there, do not worry, I will personally take you back." Dumbledore walked closer to him, Atreya looked directly at him ready to attack.

" ** _Who is this old man?_** "

" ** _He is the headmaster of my school._** "

" ** _I don't like his smell Master... he doesn't have good intentions._** "

 _ **"**_ _ **I will be careful with him, but don't bite him it could cause trouble.**_ "

" ** _As you wish Master._** "

"The circumstances have changed Headmaster. That place is not my home any longer as I did the process to legally emancipate myself from them. And you said so yourself, I was safe there as long as it was my home. But it's not anymore." Dumbledore shivered at the snake language. He hated the ability and as soon as the war was over he would make sure Harry never used it again.

"I see, how did you find this place?" He did not look happy. Everyone was tense, waiting to see the situation unfold.

"I was lucky to find Remus in Diagon Alley the day I took my lordship sir," he didn't want to involve any of them, but Remus was the safest bet. 

"I believed it was safer for Harry to be here than in a hotel in muggle London," Remus added.

Dumbledore looked at both of them for awhile before turning to Harry. "Harry can you come with me. I would like to speak to you in private for a moment."

"Of course sir" he got up and they went to one of the rooms upstairs.

"This was extremely reckless Harry. Taking your lordship was dangerous, you could have died in the process." Dumbledore was trying to sound worried, Harry wasn't buying it. "I know you feel like they don't love you my boy, but of course they do. They are your family, I'm sure they miss you terribly, and you need to be somewhere where Tom can't find you."

"Sir, are you implying that this house is not safe from Voldemort?" acting concerned, "I mean I thought the entire reason for the Malfoys being here is for them needing to hide from him. If this place is not safe I'm sure we can find a place that is. Then me staying with them wouldn't be a problem." He smiled seeing Dumbledore's eyes narrow slightly.

"This house may be safe for them but you are a different matter" he used his usual kind smile. "The Weasleys are worried sick about you. Molly hasn't stopped asking for you and poor Misses Weasley cries every day for you. I'm sure they would love to know you are safe with your family again."

"Then I suppose I will have to look at the properties I inherited to find a place safe enough for me. I'm sure there must be at least one." He forced himself not to laugh at the mention of Molly, she certainly didn't care if he is alright. "Well sir, you can tell them I'm completely safe."

They stood their in awkward silence for a moment. "If this is all you needed to discuss with me sir, I believe you should go to the Order to inform them to stop looking for me." He turned around to leave when something came to mind. "Sir do we have a professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts already?"

"No we do not my dear boy. I haven't found anyone qualified for the job," hiding his anger. Harry was definitely being difficult with him, he will need to get back on his good side soon. He is still necessary for the war ahead. "Why, do you have a suggestion?"

He restrained from rolling his eyes, because all their previous professors were incredible qualified "I actually do sir, Remus was the best teacher we had. Don't you think he deserves a second chance?" 

"Of course he does. He is a very good teacher. Having him in the school could be of great help in case of an attack" Dumbledore mused. "But the full moon would still be a problem. After all the incidents I'm not sure that Severus would agree to cover his classes during the full moon again"

"And why not the Malfoys? I mean... they will still need to hide when the school year starts. If they are left alone here it could be dangerous. But, if they are at the school they have the protection and it could be helpful to have them if there is an attack." He actually just wanted Remus in the school again. They desperately needed a good DADA professor and this was the only option that came to mind. The more he thought about it the more he liked it. "Mister Malfoy could do the classes during the full moon, and Mrs. Malfoy has healer training she could help Madam Pomfrey. She is always very busy, I'm sure she will appreciate the help"

Dumbledore was surprised and unsure. He didn't want more dark wizards in the school, but it was a good plan of action and he could keep an eye in them a lot better there. Following this tiny request could get him into Harry's good graces again. "You make an excellent point Harry, I shall speak to them about this immediately. Can you please send them up here?" Harry ran downstairs excited.

"How did it go?" Remus asked, confused by the happy expression Harry had.

"I got you a job!" He smiled excited and turned to Lucius and Narcissa a little more anxious. He was hoping that they would be on board with this idea. "And well, I also got both of you one."

"What?!" The three adults say at the same time and he vaguely explains the situation.

"Dumbledore accepted this plan?" Lucius asked skeptically.

"Yes, he is waiting for you upstairs to talk about it." The three of them went to talk to Dumbledore, it wasn't a good idea to make him wait to long.

"Great, the werewolf will be teaching again" Snape scowled.

"And my parents are going to be in the school now" Draco groaned. He loves his parents, but what teenager would want their parents in the same school.

"It can't be that bad. You will just need to behave in front of them." 

"Easier said than done, believe me" he rolled his eyes. He enjoyed the smile Harry had now that Remus would come back to Hogwarts.

**• ——————— • ——————— •**

When they got to the room Dumbledore was looking at the window without acknowledging them for a long time. He seemed to be looking for something outside. 

"Did you want to talk to us sir?" Remus was the first to speak.

"Yes indeed. I will assume that young Harry already told you the situation?" turning around to face them now.

"He explained to some extent yes, but I will like to know the conditions from you" Lucius said.

"Well with the current situation it would be terribly irresponsible on my part to not have a qualified DADA teacher. Remus, as Harry established, has been their best professor to date." Remus beaming at that, he had worked very hard for the job. "And your family Lucius still will need protection when term resumes. This is a good solution, we would have both of you fill in the position of DADA professor. As for Mrs. Malfoy, Harry mentioned your previous healer training. If you so desired, your knowledge would be greatly appreciated in our infirmary." 

"All of you being in the castle would be a great advantage if we receive any kind of attack." He went silent for a while then continued in a friendlier tone, "I would like to know your opinion on the matter of course."

"I would love to teach again, but the parents will have a problem with it."

"I don't believe a known Death Eater would be well received, but i can fill the position when Lupin needs it as long as I still get the freedom to leave the castle at will of course" Lucius said.

"I have very little experience applying my training but I will help if I'm needed."

"It's true the parents may have some reservations, but I will handle all of their concerns" Dumbledore said. He conjured the contracts and quills for them. "Regrettably I need to go, I have to inform the rest of the Order that Harry is safe now. If you will excuse me." Once the contracts were signed he left right away and the rest went downstairs to the others.

"And?" Harry asked excited as soon as they entered the room. He beamed when Remus nodded.

"Yes, we all signed the contracts. Thank you for the recommendation cub." 

"You deserve it. You are the only teacher we actually learned something useful from," smiling and added as an afterthought, "and also the only one that wasn't trying to kill me or harm me on purpose."

"They have what?!" Narcissa said 

"When has this happened?" Lucius asked concerned. He knew most teachers were incompetent, but they didn't seem dangerous.

"Oh, you don't know?" Tilting his head to the side, at the astonish faces he elaborated 

"Quirrell in first year with the whole having Voldemort in the back of his head. I'm not sure if he wanted to harm me or kill me but my guess is he wasn't planning very good things for me. Lockheart tried to obliviate me. Remus accidentally went a little werewolf on me, but it wasn't your fault, Hermione and I shouldn't have been in the forest in the first place. Crouch or Moody with the unforgivables and he did try to kill me after the tournament." He said all this like it was the most normal thing in the world. The others were horrified.

He looked at his right hand and said with more hatred than the others have ever heard him speak with "and we have Umbridge"

"What did she do?" Lucius asked, wondering what she could do that was worse than the others to win actual anger from Harry.

"Her lovely detentions." He showed them his hand. You could still read it as clear as day if you paid attention _I must not tell lies_

"Blood quill" Severus said in a faint voice. "Why didn't you report this? Did she do this to anyone else?!"

"I believe the Slytherins were the only ones that didn't get her lovely treatment" Harry looked angry. "Who was I supposed to report this to? McGonagall just told me to keep my head down and my temper under control, Dumbledore didn't even look at me the whole year, and even if he did he couldn't do anything about it! And can you really tell me you would have believed me if I came to you sir!?" 

"We could find a better solution than allowing her to torture you into submission!" Severus said sharply.

"Better me than the others! As long as I was her focus the rest could go under the radar!" Looking defiant at him. "Or do you think once I gave up she would stop? The only thing that would accomplish is prove her method works. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction."

Severus looked taken back while Harry took a deep breath to calm down. "I think I'm the only one that did it often enough to get a permanent scare, and she did get what she deserved." He had a slightly sadistic look on his face that sent a little shiver through the others.

"What happened to her?" Draco asked disgusted with himself for ever being part of that in any way.

"Oh I'm not sure. What will the centaurs do to someone that called them filthy half-breeds?" said with a smirk.

They silence stretched for a while before Harry got restless. "So I'm hoping to break that cycle this year and not have as many problems with DADA teachers. Unless one of you is secretly planning my death I think I'm all good."

"Seems to be a lot of work to kill you, so I will pass" Lucius deadpanned.

"I believe this is enough death talk for a day" Narcissa said. They decided to finish breakfast quickly and stay away from the heavier topic for the rest of the day.


	8. Harry's birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this chapter I have rewritten it like 5 times already hopefully is not to bad

The night was dreadfully cold, the forest that surrounds the house was uncharacteristically quiet. In one of the tallest tree two figures settled to watch over the lonely house.

"It's almost time" the shorter figure said.

"He will need your assistant very soon, do you think they will help us?"

"We need them now."

"We may need them, but it doesn't mean they would want to help us after what our kind did to them."

"We can always hope..."

"May the gods be in our favor."

"You are so dramatic when you talk sometimes, hopefully we will survive this."

They looked at each other in agreement before going back to observe the house and wait for the right moment to introduce themselves.

**• ------- • ------- •**

The next couple of days passed by without any problems, all of them easing into a routine. Draco and Harry ended up sharing a bed every night to avoid the nightmares, it actually worked most of the time.

The only problem was Harry, he was feeling strange and uncomfortable in his own skin. His back hurt terribly all day long and his skin was so overly sensitive that any hard touch felt like needles stabbing it. He wanted to tear the skin off just make it stop. As much as he tried not to show his discomfort, Draco noticed almost right away when he was hesitant to give Remus a hug. Of course after that Narcissa and Severus were all over him trying to see what was wrong, they still didn't know for sure what it was. They told him it was just his inheritance settling in, but they didn't look convinced themselves.

He was so distracted by all of the recent events he forgot completely about his birthday, luckily the other didn't. A couple of days before Harry's birthday Draco convinced his parents to let him go get a gift by himself.

He couldn't go for the gift until the day before since Harry and him usually spent all day together. That didn't give him a lot of time to go to Diagon Alley, but that day Remus and Harry were going to the village nearby for some fresh groceries and some other things, he did not pay attention to what it was. That will give him a good couple of hours to find something perfect.

As soon as they left he put a glamour on and apparated close to Gringotts quickly withdrawing money from his personal vault and started to look around. He had no idea what Harry could want, he could probably just tell him happy birthday and the other would be more than happy with that. But he refused to give him anything short of perfect.

He looked around almost all of Diagon Alley without any success. Yes, there were some books that might be interesting, but a book seems to simple for him. There was also a quidditch broom kit that was interesting, but he knew his mother already bought him to that particular gift. He was just rounding the corner to Knockturn alley when he heard some familiar voices.

"I told you she was not serious" Blaise's smooth baritone voice came from the front of a bookstore.

"But she was so sweet, I'm sure she will owl soon" Pansy said whining.

"God dammit, wake up and smell the cheap motel darling. You are just the lover" Blaise said pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Hey! It wasn't a cheap one, I have standards" she said indignantly.

"Because that makes it so much better" he said rolling his eyes. When he spotted him watching them he raised one eyebrow and looked him up and down. "Can I help you with something?"

He smiled at the scowl he got from both of them. "Hello, Blaise, Pansy, it has been a while since we saw each other." Their eyes widened dramatically once they recognized his voice.

"Drake?" Pansy tentatively said, and when he nodded she threw herself at him and almost choked him with a hug.

"Pansy you are going to kill him" Blaise said and she instantly took a step back.

"Sorry, how is that you are here?" She asked excited to see him safe.

"I'm looking for a birthday gift for Harry." He enjoyed their shock faces for a moment before continuing, "it's a long story. But at the moment he is living with us and we are friends now."

"Thank Merlin, you will finally stop the hopeless pinning" Pansy said. "It was becoming a little pathetic darling."

"A little?" Blaise added "he once literally talked about his eyes for three hours non stop. That is definitely pathetic."

"I might have been a tiny bit obsessed, but stop being dramatic." He rolled his eyes, "how have thing been for both of you?"

"Mother has been pushing for me to get betrothed soon. She still holds the concept that I'm straight" Pansy answered before her expression turned somber. "Father hasn't been home all summer."

Draco felt a stab of guilt hearing that, he often forgets that Pansy's father is a real death eater. Of course he has been away for a while, the little they have gathered about the outside word is that the Dark Lord has been attacking more often that ever, now than people are aware of his existence again. Her relationship with both her parents is strained at best. They kicked her out of the house and almost disowned her when she came out to them. For most pureblood families homosexuality isn't a big deal, if some were okay with inbreeding they certainly didn't have the hypocrisy to judge others preferences. But the Parkinson's were the exception to that, ironically taking more of the muggle believes in marriage. Pansy cried for days after not knowing what to do with herself if they disowned her, they took her back just because Draco's parents were going to legally adopt Pansy and that would reflect poorly on them as a family.

"My mother is currently in Italy with her soon to be eighth husband. Fortunately she did not force me to meet him this time" Blaise said. "Theo is staying with me again this summer, his father seems to be even crazier this time."

It was a relief that Blaise at least could stay neutral in terms of war as is his mother. Draco remembered being jealous of him when they were younger because people didn't look at him the same as the rest of the death eater children. But now he understands that he had his own prejudice to deal with thanks to his mother's multiple marriages. His relationship with her is definitely something he is not jealous of, it is basically nonexistent, they barely talk to each other a couple times a year if at all.

Theo is a whole different story. He is extremely quiet and tends to blend into the background often. He doesn't really talk much, but he is a very sweet guy and the three of them have a soft spot for him. His home life is especially horrible, after his mother's death his father went absolutely crazy. He is a very abusive and cruel man with obvious anger management issues. Theo doesn't talk about what happens behind closed doors, but you would need to be blind to not notice the different wounds he has at the beginning of every year and how he always tries to get as far away from him as he can. He usually he stays with Blaise or Draco during holidays and as much of the summer as he can.

"Come on Drake, you have to tell us more of how the golden boy is now living with you" Pansy said once they started to walk through Knockturn Alley to get to their favorite coffee shop.

"He got in some trouble and needed to get out of his home. We went to pick him up and well, now he is living with us." He didn't want to dabble too much on the why, it is not his place to tell after all. "I apologized for my previous behavior and he forgave me right away."

"Of course he did, he is the most Gryffindor to ever Gryffindor. The whole forgiving thing must be ingrained into their brains as much as their love for almost dying." Blaise laughed while they sat down and ordered some coffee and sweets. "I will assume we will be seeing him more often now then?"

"Yes, we decided to at least be cordial with each other friends as much as possible." He wanted to say Gryffindor is not that bad, but Harry did have the tendency of run into danger constantly.

"Alright, we will be as cordial as possible as well. Are the rumors of the golden boy true?" Pansy asked.

"He definitely is a lot like the rumors say, but you would be surprised with his actual personality. He is a lot less Gryffindor than I originally thought and has a lot of Slytherin in him." He smiled and continued with a soft tone, "he is very sweet and caring. He worries a lot about making people around him comfortable."

"Let's leave that there or you could go for hours." Blaise stopped him before he had to endure his friend reciting poetry about Potter again. "Do you have any idea for a gift?"

"None at all" he said defeated "nothing seems good enough."

"We can help, I'm guessing the three of us have enough of a brain to come up with something" Pansy said.

They finished their meal and started to look around. The regular stores didn't offer anything worthy, they had been to most stores here and knew their way around dark or cursed objects better than they probably should at their age. But after hours of searching it seemed that none of their usual stores had anything remotely appealing.

Draco was starting to dread that he would not find anything at all or they would need to go to "Borgin and Burkes." They all avoid that store as much as possible since Pansy accidentally got cursed touching an item, but when he started to lose all hope something in an old jewelry shop window caught his eye. It was a fairly simple choker made of black velvet ribbon with silver filigree embroidered on it, and right in the middle it had a deep green opal pendant. It was a beautiful and would look perfect on Harry.

He entered the stored quickly with Blaise and Pansy following. "Excuse me sir, can you show me this necklace please?" The clerk got up from the main desk and went to where he was near the window. 

"Oh this is a magnificent piece," taking the box he looked at it fondly. "It has been here for longer than I have been alive."

The clerk carefully took it out of the box for them to have a better look. Upon closer inspection he could see that inside the gem there was a tiny sleeping dragon. It seemed to be a Hungarian Horntail from what he could tell, the dragon sensed them and looked up for a second before curling itself tighter and went back to sleep. "Merlin, it is beautiful."

"It really is, we speculate this was a pureblood relic from a family that most likely got lost in time." Putting it back in the case, "the dragon on the inside is somewhat sentient being similar to a portrait, and it is trained to give the wearer a warning if there is danger nearby, ill intended people, poison and all kinds of things." 

"You need to get it for him, it's too amazing to let it pass" Pansy said excitedly.

"I agree, I don't know if your golden boy is much of the jewelry type but this is perfect" Blaise added. "With his luck anything that can give him a minimal semblance of self preservation should be forced upon him." 

"How much is it?" He had already made the decision when he saw it in the window, but it was comforting to know that it could help with Harry's unfortunate tendency of attracting danger.

"2000 galleons" the clerk said smiling.

Draco paid without any issue, it was actually a lot cheaper than he expected. He is pretty sure Harry would complain if he were to know the price of the gift, thankfully basic social norm assured he will never know. "What is the warning it gives?"

"The dragon will breath fire warming up the gem, it not painful but it helps to put the wearer on alert" the seller said and then smile kindly at them "have a great day, thank you for your purchase."

"Thank you" they went out and went back to the main street, he was running out of time. He bid his friends good bye assuring them he will try to contact them again before term starts.

He apparated in the house just in time, not two minutes after he arrived Lupin and Harry got back carrying their own weight in food.

**• ------- • ------- •**

When the next morning arrived Harry woke up early as always, but the difference was he woke up alone. It was incredibly odd, Draco had never woken up before him, the blond wasn't a morning person in the least. Draco usually got grumpy even if woke up five minutes before his usual hour.

He didn't pay much attention and went down to make breakfast, he didn't expect to see all the others already at the table with a table full of Harry's favorite things.

"Happy birthday Harry!" Narcissa said excited.

"Wait, what?" He look genuinely confused, much to the amusement of the rest.

Remus chuckled, "it's your birthday cub. I guess you forgot about it." Harry immediately blushed and had a big smile on his face.

"I did, thank you" he wanted to cry but refused to do so. He was so happy he couldn't stop smiling.

"Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to sit down and eat?" Draco said still pretty sleepily.

Harry sat down and all of them started to eat and chat happily, even Snape seemed to be enjoying the morning after being forced out of bed for this. Draco and Harry went to the garden until the twins arrived. 

"HARRY!" they said at unison before throwing themselves at him for a hug, they ended up on the ground in a little pile "Happy birthday!"

"Thank you, but I can't breathe" he tried to push they off chuckling and sitting next to Draco again while the others sat down in front of them.

The four of them stayed outside talking for hours. The twins were telling them about their plans of opening a second shop thanks to the great success they where having, they didn't have a location but they hoped to get a place in Hogsmeade. Throughout the whole conversation Draco was playing with Harry's hair and the other was practically purring in contentment.

"I told you they were going to be together" came a familiar dreamy voice of Luna.

"You can't blame me for not believing it" Neville snorted.

Completely ignoring the comments Harry jumped up and ran to hug them both happily. "I missed you both so much!" The two teens smiled at their friend and hugged him back.

"Neville, happy birthday!" The other boy blushed a little.

"Thank you, happy birthday as well Harry." Neville beamed, they got closer to the other, the twins greeting them warmly. Neville looked at the Malfoy heir very nervously, he was an easy target for his bullying a lot of the time unlike Harry he rarely, if ever, fought back.

Draco sighed, he knew he would need to apologize to Longbottom soon. He had been terrible to the shy Gryffindor, he will do it when he can talk to him alone, for now he will try his best to be nice and maybe the other will relax. He keeps his face neutral "good evening, happy birthday Longbottom"

"Oh, ahh...thank you" the other blushed.

"Lovegood," Draco politely nodded in Luna's direction, she didn't seem to be nervous or scared of him so that was good.

"Hello Draco, I'm happy to see there isn't anymore Hannimite in your head" she said and smiled.

"Thank you?" He tried to sound genuine but it came out as a question.

Conversation was easier than Draco would have thought, they mostly focused on what they wanted to do once Hogwarts started again, until Narcissa came to collect them for lunch. She didn't seem surprised about the new people there, she just smiled kindly.

"Oh you must be Luna and Neville, nice to meet you " they returned the greeting and sat down.

Narcissa was immensely proud, she cooked almost everything today including the huge strawberry and chocolate cake. After everyone ate exaggerated amounts of food the group moved to the living room gathering in a circle for Harry to open presents. Snape even stayed, although that might be because Narcissa glared at him until he sat down.

The first he opened was Narcissa and Lucius's, it was a luxury quidditch kit and a book for different strategies. The twins give him a rather big assortment of everything they had in the store, they also brought their siblings gifts. Bill sent him a rare book of types of curses in items, Charlie sent a book about dragons accompanied with a dagger, the note attached to that one said the blade was made from a scale from a Ukrainian Ironbelly and the handle was one a fang from the same type of dragon.

Luna's gift was a knitted blanket, it was so soft Harry immediately wrapped himself in it. Neville gave him a book on magical plants and language of the flower. To his surprise Snape also got him something they were two books, one was about dueling and another one a study on Occlumency. Snape was scowling at the others for giving him such shocked looks, he wasn't ill manner enough to not have a gift.

"Thank you sir" he decided not to make Snape even more uncomfortable than he already looked by trying to hug him as he had done with all the previous ones. He received a grateful nod from the professor that was more than happy not to be obliged to hug someone.

Next it was Remus's gift, when he opened it he saw a photo album full of the Marauders in school. Practically all of their pranks were in it, and some pictures were of his mother as well. He watched the photos move fascinated as he always was when he could see a little bit of them. He launched himself at Remus, hugging him as tight as he could. "Thank you."

"You are welcome cub" hugging him back.

Next it was Draco's gift, he was pretty nervous, he just hoped Harry liked it. Harry opened the box and started to examine the necklace, it was really beautiful. He wasn't really one to wear jewelry, but he loves this, the dragon inside was looking at him before throwing a tiny fire ball as a way to say hi. "This is amazing! Thank you!"

"I'm glad you like it" breathing relieved and helping Harry put it on. "The dragon is supposed to give you warning if there is danger close to you."

"Really? That is amazing" he hugged the other happily.

"Yes, since you seem to have been born without self-preservation, something had to do that job." He laughed when the other glared at him. "You can't deny you are always running directly into the most dangerous situation you can find."

"I don't, it just happens" he said indignantly.

"Because you do idiotic things."

"Hey!" He looked at the rest for some support but it didn't come. "Traitors. When have I ever done something stupidly dangerous?"

" You caught a snitch with your mouth in your first game" said George.

"I didn't mean to! I fell off my broom!"

"You used the flying car to go to Hogwarts instead of waiting for an adult that could have contacted the school and had you floo there" Fred added.

"In my defense, that wasn't my idea."

"You told me you let a dangerous snake free in a muggle zoo" Remus decided to add.

"That was technically accidental magic, and he just wanted to go home. It seemed reasonable at the time..."

"You did smuggle a dragon once" Luna said.

"It was Hagrid's, not mine."

"So there was a dragon, I was right!" Draco said narrowing his eyes at Harry who looked at him sheepishly.

"You went where you knew there was a basilisk with the most incompetent human being possible" Neville said.

"He was the closest adult?" Running out of excuses. He saw the twins were going to say more so he put his arms up in defeat, "Fine, I might do some stupid things sometimes."

"Sometimes?" Draco said and got hit on the arm for that. "Ah! That hurt!" For someone so tiny he had a mean punch.

"You deserved it" he laughed at the weak glare the other one gave him.

"See if I do anything nice for you again" it was a completely empty threat and everyone knew it.

Harry was laughing when suddenly he felt a sharp stab of pain right in the middle of his back. He went completely silent and grabbed unto his arms digging his nails hard enough to draw blood.

"Harry, what is happening?!" Draco said alarmed.

"Hurts..." he curled up in a ball on the floor starting to sweat.

Even for someone with a incredible high pain tolerance this was a lot. Something was moving around inside of him trying to tear the skin away. He screamed because he didn't know what else to do.

The others were panicking, one second everything was fine and now it looked like Harry was dying. They quickly tried to move the things off of the couch and tried laying him there.

" Harry dear, please talk to me. Tell me were it hurts?" Narcissa said as calm as he could.

"Hurts hurts hurts!" Harry said incoherently but seemed to be trying to touch his back, so they used that as a guide. "Remus, Draco, grab his hands, Fred and George grab the legs, don't let him move!"

They all jumped into action grabbing Harry as best as they could trying to keep him from moving, which was rather difficult since Harry was thrashing wildly. Narcissa opted for cutting the shirt and quickly applied a glamour to the scars on Harry's back just in case the others hadn't seen them already.

She could see the problem immediately, in Harry's shoulder blades hard lumps were forming. The skin was red and irritated and it looked purple just at the base of the lumps and it was starting to bruise pretty badly.

"Oh god, what is happening to him?" Remus said distressed.

" I... I don't know" she tried touching them and Harry started to scream bloody murder the second she made any type of contact. "I don't know what to do."

"I believe I can help him," said an unfamiliar and cheerful voice. 


	9. Interesting Visitors

"I believe I can help him" said an unfamiliar and cheerful voice.

Everyone turned around abruptly, there were two women in the door that lead to the garden.

The shortest one of the two seemed to be the one that spoke. She was wearing an over-sized lavender sweater with a matching tartan skirt, she had white curly hair cut in a shoulder length bob with very light blue eyes and freckles. She was smiling warmly at them and playing with her hand a little nervous.

The taller one was just behind, she had a waist length wavy auburn hair with chestnut color eyes. She looked completely bored and had this cold and unapproachable aura about her. She was wearing a floor length navy blue skirt fitted at the waist with a flowing white blouse.

"Who are you?" Snape asked cautiously.

"No time for introductions, he needs my help." The shorter one tried to go closer, just to have many wand pointed at her. The other one put herself in front of them and growled threateningly. "Calm down, this is a normal reaction dear" grabbing her arm softly and looking at the others again.

"I will not harm him, I promise." When none of them seemed to be moving at all she sighed. "We really don't have time for this!"

Harry let out a loud scream and started to thrash around more than before bringing back the attention to the problem. She spoke again sounding distressed, "Please, this will be even more painful if you don't let me help him."

"Let them, Harry needs her" said Luna with a serious tone no one heard her use before.

None of the other seemed convinced, but Harry was in agony and they didn't have any other options at the moment. They cleared a path for her. The shorter girl rushed where the boy was laying and in a swift motion she positioned herself straddling him trying to get a better access to his back, "grab him as hard as you can."

She started muttering some kind of incantation in an unknown language, light beginning to show through Harry's skin seemed to form some type of pattern. The boy screamed, once again trying to get away with all his strength but the other four kept him in place.

Harry only knew that everything hurt to touch, the sound, even breathing was painful. He felt like his organs were rearranging to accommodate new additions, he was vaguely aware of the stranger on his back. The language she was speaking wasn't one he recognized but it seemed familiar in a way. He didn't have much time to ponder it, the pain was overtaking every rational thought at the moment.

Draco was panicking, Harry's screams were almost physically painful for him. Having to hold him down for him to be able to take the pain was unbearable. He knew he wasn't the only one feeling like this, the four of them were sweating with the effort and the distress was more than clear in all of them. He noticed the taller girl was looking at him like he was supposed to do something, which just made him even more hysterical and annoyed "What?!"

"He's your mate, help him with the pain" she said in her deep voice, she helped him holding Harry's arms down. "Touch his head and concentrate on him."

He was confused, mate? What was that supposed to mean?! He followed the instructions either way if just to try to help Harry. The moment he touched Harry's head he understood what she meant, he felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing him and the air was like sandpaper in his throat. He was about to let go when he noticed that Harry wasn't moving around as much as before. He was still in pain, but it was more manageable with him sharing it now. He stilled himself to take it, if this was helping Harry he sure as hell wasn't going to let him suffer through it alone.

The girl on top of Harry took a knife out of her pocket and started to cut where the lumps were. The blood started to run from them, staining her clothes and the couch a little. As quickly as she could manage, she pulled something from inside the cut muttering the previous incantation again louder this time. The glow was now so strong that they could barely look at it.

In an instant the light became even stronger, blinding them all momentarily. It was followed by a sharp gust of wind that threw everyone that was close to Harry tumbling to the ground. When they could see the couch again Harry was nowhere to be found. They were all in shock for a couple of minutes before they willed their bodies to move again.

"Where is he!?" Draco said worried.

"Everything is fine, this is normal, I promise" the girl said. "He must be outside."

"Who are you?" Remus asked.

"We will explain once we find him" the girl said before going to the garden with her partner quickly. The rest were looking at them with a mix of distrust and worry but followed anyway.

They split up to look through the forest, it was dense and you could easily get lost in it. Draco was trying hard not panic, that would not help the situation, but he couldn't help being anxious at the prospect of Harry being hurt somewhere in this forest without him. He suddenly heard some branches break to his left and he ran in the direction of the sound. This felt familiar, a flash of a dream he had not long ago came to him, chasing something in a forest like this one, it was strangely nostalgic.

His thoughts were cut short when he got to a clear patch of grass. Right in the middle there was a creature hiding itself in what looked like a cocoon of glass.

"You need to go, he could react badly to us" the shorter girl told Draco coming out of nowhere. He just looked at her for a long while before processing her instructions.

He took a deep breath and got closer slowly "Harry?" He tentatively called, a couple of steps of distance still. The cluster moved slightly, "Harry" he called again more firmly this time. The cocoon then opened taking his breath away.

The creature inside was definitely Harry, but he looked very different. The cut shirt still clung from his arms but he could clearly see Harry's body. It was nowhere near as scrawny as before, filling out to something a lot more healthy looking. His skin was still littered with scars but now it had a golden glow all over. His eyes also changed, while still their natural deep emerald color, the scleras were completely black, making the green pop even more than before. They were a little bit unnerving, they seemed to be looking straight into his soul, but he couldn't look away from them. Clearly there was a detail that stood out more than any other, he now had a pair of huge wings on his back. They were very peculiar, the feathers resembling stained glass of a black color with bright red at the tip of the feathers. They looked very sharp and dangerous.

Draco was in a trance, everything else disappear the moment he locked eyes with the stunning creature in front of him. It was a strange kind of beauty, one that could be considered scary but you were still incapable of looking away from it. He didn't even notice the others getting there at all, they didn't matter when he could be looking at the beautiful creature in from of him.

Harry felt different, his mind was working out of primal instinct. He could see the boy in front of him but he just couldn't recognize him anymore. Harry got closer circling the other not even knowing what it was he was looking for in him, but he felt attached to the other in some way. It felt right to have those grey eyes on him.

Then it hit him, the familiar scents of peppermint and apples made something click in the depth of his mind and told him it was important for him to remember this, to remember this person. _**Draco**_ In an instant the name came to him, bringing everything back in a rush almost making him dizzy at the fast flow of memories that were clearing his mind and forcing the more animalistic instincts to stay in the back of his mind where they belonged.

"Draco?" He said once he was able to regain some resemblance of control of his mind and body.

"Harry" said with relief, this relief was short lived because suddenly Harry's was tumbling down. Luckily Draco was fast enough to catch him before he hit the ground.

"Are you okay?" Draco asked.

"I... I can't move my body anymore" he couldn't feel anything and he was starting to panic.

"He will be able to move soon, no need to worry. His body is just adapting, this is a great shock for his senses going through this process" said the shorter girl seeing everyone panic expression. Then her and her partner proceeded to go back to the house without more explanation.

No one said anything, not even Fred or George dared speak right now. It was obvious that their questions were not going to be answered yet.

The sun was setting when they finally got back to the house. The distance seemed farther now that the initial panic was over and it was replaced with quiet anxiety. They settled in the living room Draco sat down with Harry on his lap, still unable to move his body. Draco rearranged the wings carefully, a little afraid that he might cut himself, but the feathers were rather soft and harmless.

"I will explaining everything, but I will introduce myself first" the shorter girl said smiling once they were all seated in a not quite comfortable silence. "My name is Kaly and she is my mate Adris" turning to her companion who politely nodded. "Nice to meet all of you and I'm very sorry for being cryptic before but there was really no time to introduce ourselves properly."

"Nice to meet you" Narcissa said out of automatic politeness. "Can you please tell us how both of you got here?"

"We have been here from the beginning, but it wasn't the right moment for you to meet us" Kaly said. "But no need to worry, your location is still safe."

"How can you be sure of that if you were capable of tracking us" Lucius said, he was overall calm but he kept his guard up just in case.

"We are a special case believe me it will make sense when we explain the circumstances."

"By all means then explain" Severus said scowling.

Both women looked at each other deciding where to start.

"I guess the best way to start this is to clarify what we are" Kaly gets up muttering a spell and suddenly a pair of white with dark grey wings appear and her eyes go black just as Harry's are at the moment, she also has some markings in her neck that most definitely weren't there before.

Her partner got up as well and quickly transformed in a dark grey tiger with white lines. She seemed a little bit smaller than Draco was in that form although he hasn't tried to get back into it after that day in the bank to be sure about it. On the spine of the tiger it has the same markings the other has on her neck.

Everyone was in shock, more the ones that were there when Draco transformed. At least now they would have an answer for that, but it was obvious that most of them were still very on edge by this whole situation and it was very difficult to be patient to get the answers.

"How did you make them disappear" Harry asked. He was now able to move a little more but everything felt numb still.

"It's a spell similar to what you call a glamour but this will make them go inside your skin. It doesn't hurt per se but it will be uncomfortable if used for an extended period of time. Do you want to try?" Kaly said kindly and got closer when the other nodded. The rest were still watching their every move like a hawk, it didn't bother her, after all they were strangers. "Repeat _recondunt in medio vestrum_ you will not need a wand, don't worry."

Harry followed the instructions easily, he could feel a little how the wings were retracting. It was not painful, just uncomfortable, and he felt a constant pressure in his back now. He was not bothered by the wings before, but they would definitely be a problem once the school year started. After all even with glamour the bulk of them would still be there.

"What are...." George said.

" you people?" Fred finish both extremely confused.

"We are survivors from two ancient races, I'm a Silian" Kaly said. "I'm what you would call a light creature, I believe we are related to the veelas in some way, but I'm not sure about that."

"I'm a Kiritari" Adris talks looking mostly at Draco and Harry since they were the ones that actually need the information "a dark creature." 

"I have never heard of those kinds of Creatures before" Remus said curiously. He was calm with the two women, they felt harmless. Moony would sense if either were a threat immediately, more so if they got close to his cub.

"That is normal since we are very careful not to be discovered by wizards or other creatures. There is just a handful of us still existing, it would be too risky for us to be known" Kaly said.

"What happened to your species?" Lucius asked. "If you don't mind me asking."

"It's a long story," Kaly got up and moved to the center of the room. With a wave of her hand all the lights gathered in her palm, allowing her to conjure an image. "We were created almost at the beginning of everything, we were the first creatures magic blessed with its gift."

"But just as your kind, we were incapable of seeing past our differences so much that we tried to separate from each other as much as we could." Showing them what looked like a map of two cities, one of the two was suspended in the sky while the other interlace with the ground. "The Silian went to the sky, after all we were made for it. While we rarely use our wings to move in the city itself, the place we are most at home will always be the sky." 

"The Kiritari stayed on the land preferring the freedom to be in constant movement, even with our own species we preferred freedom and being alone" Adris said.

"Being separated didn't work, soon after the fighting got worse between the species until war was unavoidable." The image changed to one of despair and carnage, the only thing you could see was bodies littered everywhere and fire. "This war extended for decades... the only peace we found were the years in between fights where we prepared for the next one."

"Our species made a big mistake... we tried to break the most sacred thing magic gave us. We didn't care about the consequences and that was our downfall" Adris said with remorse.

"Our own magic turned against us, it was a massacre. People falling dead on the spot without reason. We couldn't fix this, we could only beg to whoever listened to spared us." She paused for a moment getting rid of the terrible memory. "Just a handful of each survived, we have tried our best to live in the shadows and never expose ourselves until, well now."

"What did you try to break that was so important?" Draco asked, his mind was trying to remember something but couldn't quite get it.

"The bond between two mates" Kaly said looking at both of them a little uncomfortable.

"What is that?" Harry asked a lot calmer than most people would be. After all, this just added one more oddity to the list for him.

"A mate is I guess what many people believe to be your soulmate or your partner. Just as many other creatures, we divided ourselves between submissive and dominant. A pair of these will be able to have a mating bond, it's basically a marriage" Kaly looked at her mate fondly.

"Either category is innate in you, and they had their own idiosyncrasies. For example, I'm a submissive, that will make me weaker physically speaking and smaller than my mate. I will also be the one carrying children if we decided to have them, things like that" Kaly said. "Adris is a dominant, so she of course is supposed to protect me since she is stronger physically and will tend to be more territorial with me."

"A dominants only interest tends to be their mate, and they are always our priority" Adris added with a very light blush.

"I will say that you Harry, are a submissive as I am, and Draco would fit better with the profile of a dominant."

Draco felt a little pride in being a dominant, more when he remembered Adris saying Harry is his mate. After all, he would give everything if it made Harry happy, he had no problem with this arrangement. He just had to figure out how Harry felt about this.

Harry blushed, he wasn't sure he liked the implication of him being submissive, but it doesn't seem like he can change it even if he doesn't like it. Having a mate sounded incredibly nice though, someone who would support you and being their priority did sound like something he would like "How do you know I'm a submissive?"

"Well the pain you felt before, dominant Silian don't go through that process because the pain comes from you body accommodating for future children" Kaly clarified.

"Chi-children?" Harry stuttered and put his hand in his stomach as a reflex.

"Yes, all submissive can bear children, doesn't matter if is a Male or female although is very difficult for a male to get pregnant without a mate" Kaly said chuckling at his reaction.

He needed a minute to actually process this, he has wanted a family of it own as long as he remembered. When he realized he was gay a couple of year ago he let go of the hope of having children, after all how would he know if the magical word would be more accepting than muggles were in terms of adoption. Now that wouldn't be a problem at all, he could bear a child now. It was both amazing and scary, he could only wonder how that would be.

"You two are the first ones of our species being born outside of our circle" Kaly decided to continue the conversation, she seemed a bit distressed "that was supposed to not be possible."

"Well it clearly happen but why?" Harry said.

"Our people believed it's a sign of the end," there was a tense pause, "We were warned that one day another species would make the same mistake we did and would suffer a worse outcome...they say they would be here to watch the downfall."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The spell for hiding their appearance: recondunt in medio vestrum / they hid it in the midst of you  
> that is the translation google gave me i hope it's correct but it should be something in that realm at least  
> i hope you like this chapter ^^


	10. Interesting Visitors pt.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very short and most of it was written with me being very sick so I'm sorry if it's terrible.  
> I do have the next chapter almost done and I believe that one is better, so I'm going to try to put it soon :3 I hope you enjoy this anyway

The silence that fell onto the room was heavy and uncomfortable. Harry looked at the ceiling, restraining himself from rolling his eyes at the irony. The "savior " of the magical world is apparently a death sentence, because why wouldn't it be? It's his life after all, fate really did a number on him.

"If what you are saying is true, the war ahead should be the downfall of the wizard kind." Lucius was the first to break the silence.

"Not just wizard kind... when we said the end we mean the end of magical world in itself" Kaly said "think about it, it's not just your kind that is fighting after all."

"Is there anything that can be done?" Remus asked worriedly.

"We are not sure... we don't even know why we were able to survive." She sighs and puts her head on her mates shoulder.

"How did you know it was us?" Draco was freaked out. It was a lot know you are part of an ancient, almost extinct species and you are a death sentence for your world. "You said you were following us before we got our inheritance, how did you know?"

"When you two were born we could feel it" a little lost in a memory, "there was a little change in our magic, it's hard to explain."

"Your faces are something all of us know since very young" Adris said while carding her fingers through Kaly's hair absent mindlessly. "We just needed to find someone that fit the description."

"When we felt the change they sent us to find both of you. It was a difficult process trying to stay hidden during the war time but when we heard of the-boy-who-lived we knew it just had to be one of the babies we were looking for," she looked at Draco, "you where harder to track down. It took us a couple of years, if not for a brief article in the paper about your family we wouldn't have been able to find you until he went to Hogwarts."

"You have being watching us for that long?" Draco said in astonishment.

"We needed to wait for you both to reach certain maturity in your magical core, we mostly stayed on the sidelines. We didn't want to interfere with your lives."

"Mostly? So you did interfere before."

"Just with little things... if we believed the danger was too high and would be lethal for either of you we helped."

Harry thought about this since his life was constantly in danger, it could be hard to remember anything in particular but he was curious about one thing that had bother him for a while. "You were the ones that send them that note, right?"

Kaly nodded and smiled sadly "I did, I saw everything and I knew you wouldn't have survived much longer like that. It was the only way to help I could think of without revealing myself."

"Thank you" he said sincerely, quite relieved that it was her. He decided to bring the conversation back to the important issue. "What do we do now? If what you said is true and we are a warning, what can we do to prevent that massacre you showed us from happening?"

"We know very little about this, but it is a belief among us that the same people that signify our disappearance would have the key to save us." Kaly answered looking somber, "if neither of you have an answer then we are completely lost."

"Why would we know if we didn't even know we are part of either of your species" Draco mused.

"That is what our stories believed, they said you would have the answers. The mated pair that our kind slaughtered were said to bring the solution before they died." The silence stretched again, it was well into the night now and the exhaustion of the day was catching up to all of them.

"We will discuss more in the morning" Narcissa got up from her seat thinking how to fit so many beds in the small living room.

"Dont worry..."

"about us..."

"We will go home..."

"we need to check on the store."

"Please owl if"

"anything happens."

The twins seemed very uneasy with all of this for one neither of them wanted to joke. They were worried about what this would mean for all the people they loved and more so what this could mean for Harry. If anyone with malicious intention got a hold of this information it could be a disaster with the way people have been reacting. They would soon blame him and want his head on a stake rather than actually look for a solution.

"We will go as well, dad needs me in the mornings " Luna said smiling and looking to be the only one that was calm and even happy with the turn of events, a stark contrast to Neville who looked white as a ghost.

"If you wish, of course, but please be careful it's very late" Narcissa said turning to Adirs and Kaly "I will transfigure a bed for both of you then, I'm sorry but this house is very small."

"Thank you, a bed sounds wonderful. We have been sleeping in the woods for months" Kaly said gesturing to her sore neck.

Luna went to Harry whispering very softly in his ear so no one else could hear her "it will be fine, once you follow your instincts everything will come back." She gave him a peck on the cheek and bid the others goodbye with the twins since they could use the floo from their apartment.

Little by little all of them retired to their rooms. Draco carried Harry princess style, even if he could move a lot more now he didn't want to risk him falling and injuring himself now.

Harry laid there looking at the ceiling contemplating everything. He had a lot of questions, a lot he wanted to learn, but what Luna said stayed in the front of his mind. It was odd, he always follows his instincts. So much so many people actually said it's one of his worst personality traits, as they tend to get him in trouble. Saying he follow them now was an extremely vague thing to say, he didn't even know what would come back. He was startled out of his musings by Draco's voice.

"Knut for your thoughts" he had been watching his confused expression for as long as he could resist the curiosity.

"It's just all of this is a lot to process, there is so much I want to learn..."

"Yes they did answer some things, but now I have even more questions." He pulled the other boy closer putting a protective arm around his waist.

Harry propped his head on the others chest to look at him better, while Draco gently ran his other hand down his back massaging lightly the area where his wings should be. "Does it hurt?"

"Not really it just feels a little strange, like there is too much bulk in a tiny space" explaining as best he could.

"Wouldn't it be more comfortable to sleep with them out then?"

"Maybe, but I don't really know how to release them now and they would use too much space" Harry shrugs, it's not really too bad so he doesn't mind waiting until tomorrow. "Don't worry it's fine, I promise."

Draco didn't seem convinced but he let it go. Harry settled, basking in the feeling of the others hand on him and the strong and steady heartbeat. He never really thought much about people's heartbeat, but it's calming to know that the person next to him is healthy and calm. At the end of the day this little sound could tell you what a face can not.

He focused on Draco's face again. He is looking at him with an almost imperceptible smile, and eyes so full of emotion it makes his heart skip a beat, He was looking at him like he was something precious, his eyes were so full of love he felt like he was drowning. No one has ever looked at him this way, and he doesn't believe he would want anybody else to do so. He is so caught up in those enchanting gray eyes that he doesn't notice that he has been slowly moving up until their lips were just a centimeter apart. Before he could overthink this situation he moved closing the distance.

Draco was not sure how they got into this situation, but he definitely wasn't complaining. He had been mulling over how perfectly Harry fit with him, how natural it felt to just hold him. This was very new to him. He never really cared about this type of thing, just holding someone without any other intention. But he is actually glad he never did this with anyone, Harry was special to him, so he is sure he wouldn't have enjoyed this if it wasn't him. He noticed when the other boy got closer, but couldn't figure out why he was doing it until he was so close he could clearly smell that sugary scent that seems to permanently cling to Harry. He couldn't read the expression on the others face before feeling Harry's lips against his.

He kissed Harry as sweetly as he could, pouring all of his feeling into it. He didn't feel exposed by it, he knew Harry would never hurt him with this. The other responded in that unique way of his, accepting his feelings and returning them ten fold. It was clear to him that Harry has hardly any experience with this, which wasn't surprising, but Merlin did it nurture a very possessive feeling in his chest. Once he leaned back Harry had a slightly dazed look, and his lips were now red, Draco was very proud of being the cause of this.

"Wow" was Harry's very eloquent response.

"Wow indeed" tracing the other's jaw softly.

"I will assume this means you like me?" With a cheeky smile, eyes bright with mirth.

"Of course I like you idiot, if I was any more obvious about it I would need a neon sign over my head" rolling his eyes fondly.

"Prat" he giggled and kissed him again. Draco was more than happy to comply.

Neither knew how long they stayed like that, just innocently exploring this new relationship. They didn't talk about what they were now, it didn't seem important at all, this just felt right and natural.

Later that night with Harry wrapped around him, almost completely asleep, he carded his fingers through the silky ink hair.

"Sweet dreams little bird, I will watch over you." That simple phrase seemed to finally unlock things that were lying dormant in their memory.


	11. Remembrance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a lot longer and very different from what I originally wanted but I like it more this way I hope it make sense and it's not to much. I hope you enjoyed this chapter ^^
> 
> ☆☆WARNING☆☆
> 
> I have no idea if this can be triggering for anyone but better be safe than sorry this mentioned an attempted rape and violence not too extreme or graphic for my standards but you never know.

_The forest stays in an unnatural silence. The hunter was calmly staring at his current prey, he was just about to launch and attack when another noise caught his attention and made the deer he was hunting run in alarm._

_He growls irritably, he is tired and he just wants to get this hunt done and go home. He follows the annoying noise, it sounds like someone singing, that was odd in itself. No one came to these parts of the forest since it's his territory. The voice, he now notices, is hauntingly beautiful. It made a shiver run down his spine with every note. The annoyance was fading to the background being replaced by the overwhelming need to find the singer._

_He got to a river and there on the shore, it was the culprit of his lost prey and the owner of the captivating voice. It was a Silian, that much was obvious, with the massive wings on their backs and he would bet it is a submissive as well. He was sitting cross legged with a bunny on his lap with a small build that looks borderline delicate. He had exquisite tan skin and ink black hair, their eyes were the most vibrant green he has ever seen. There was something eternal about the peaceful image that had him rooted the spot._

_The Silian noticed him almost right away snapping his head up in his direction. He expected the other to try to run away, even if it was almost impossible with how dense this forest is, but to his surprise the Silian didn't even move. He just looked at him like he was daring him to do something. He decided to get closer and see what could happen, after all it wasn't really much of a threat by itself._

_"Don't you think it's rude to stare at someone and not even introduce yourself?" He keeps petting the bunny that had tensed immediately with his presence._

_"Don't you think it's a little rude to interrupt someone else's hunt by disturbing their territory?" He answers once he transformed back to normal._

_"Maybe you are just a bad hunter if my presence was such a hindrance to your little hunt."_

_"I will have you know I'm an excellent hunter, but my prey heard you singing and got scared." He smirks at the slight blush the other one had now. "Aren't you a little far from your home little bird?"_

_"Little bird? I do have a name you know" rolling his eyes, "I'm a little far, but this place is far too beautiful to not come and enjoy."_

_"You may have a name but I don't know what it is and little bird suits you in my opinion" he looks around, the sun was lightly creeping through the branches in just the right way and the only noise apart from their voices was the gentle stream of the river. "It is quite beautiful I will give you that, but don't you think it's a little dangerous for someone of your kind to come here?"_

_"You haven't told me yours either, or you want me to call you overgrown cat?" He laughs at the indignation of the Kiritari, "it isn't too dangerous, after all no one comes here and if you wanted to harm me you would have done it already."_

_"I'm not an overgrow cat! My name is Altais" crossing his arms irritated again, "and why are you so sure I won't harm you, after all you spoiled my hunt. I could simply use you as a replacement."_

_"That is a peculiar name, although I'm not one to talk after all my name is Harwind." Looking a little serious for a moment he said "it is not wise to underestimate one's prey, no matter how much you believe you can win."_

_"Harwind, it is a weird name. I prefer little bird, suits you much better. So, you believe I wouldn't catch you? You have no escape here, the forest is too dense for you to fly away and I don't believe you could win in a fight" he said with a little smirk._

_Harwind left the bunny on the floor and stood up with a playful smile. "I do not need my wings to escape from you, and as I said, you should never understatement me just for how I look."_

_Altais stood up as well quite intrigued with this peculiar Silian. "Are you challenging me little bird?" Before those word left his lips the other was sprinting away at an unnatural speed, he laughs and ran trailing the other. He didn't want to transform, after all what would be the fun in that._

_They ran through the forest for the longest time, every time Altais was close to catching up, the other disappeared in thin air coming back just out of his reach again. It was both fun and exasperating to watch his "prey" get away from him like it was the easiest thing in the world._

_They finally stopped running once they were back in the little clearing by the river both exhausted. "I thought you said you were a great hunter, or was that just your ego talking?"_

_"I may be a great hunter but you are even better prey." Out of the blue he throws a spell at the other making him jump out of the way startled. "But let's see if you are as good in a fight as you are running."_

_The cocky smirk he received was just what he wanted to see, they threw spells at each other in perfect sync, soon after incorporating hand to hand combat as well. Their movements felt natural, almost as if they were dancing. Their techniques were vastly different, where Altais uses strength with speed to throw his opponent off guard, always pushing them to act rash and uncoordinated, Harwind uses fluidity and lightness, rarely using his own strength. Even as he is always aware of what his opponent would do next, for the outsider it could look like he just barely got away, lulling his opponents into a false sense of security. They didn't stop until they were both completely drained and lying on the floor fighting to catch their breath._

_"I must say you are formidable prey for a Silian," Altais said as he was on his back looking at the sky the sun already going down._

_"You are not bad for a Kiritari" sitting up hugging his legs._

_"Where did you learn to fight like that? To my knowledge the Silians are never too fond of hand to hand combat, and if the rumors are true the submissive of your kin are not allowed to even learn it."_

_"That is true, most submissive are not allowed to learn but I didn't give them a choice in the matter. It is incredibly stupid of them to not let me learn if I'm stronger than most of their dominants," there is a hint of bitterness in his tone, "I simply showed up at the training and refused to go away until I was given the chance to try. I had to fight and win against all of the dominants of my age, but it is worth it now."_

_Altais thinks about this for a moment, he would like to say that Silian are just archaic with treating their submissive that way, but he can't really say the Kiritari are any better. After all, most of them are trained to just find a mate that would protect them, a very little amount actually fight or hunt on their own. He was happy to learn this little bird is a submissive. He doesn't understand why that knowledge makes him so happy._

_"What about you? The Kiritari are not known for using many incantations."_

_"We don't, but in my opinion that is a waste. We have magic for a reason and just using it to enhance our already high sense seems stupid. I prefer to blend magic with combat, that way is more unexpected."_

_"You are very odd, did you know?"_

_"Look who is talking."_

_They laugh to themselves and watch the sunset in a comfortable silence. It was strange to be so calm with someone you just met but he just was. Regrettably Harwind had to go back home soon or he would be in a lot of trouble. Altais was very reluctant to let him go away, fearing that this would be their only meeting. The other put his worries to rest telling him that he came here almost everyday. On his way home he couldn't stop thinking about this peculiar Silian. He was very different from everything he believed, he was definitely not weak or lazy and the confidence in his own ability in combat is rather attractive. He is very much looking forward to seeing him again._

_\--------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Harwind flies away from the city to his favorite spot, he has been meeting with Altais there for weeks now and he is not ashamed to admit it's his favorite part of the day. The Kiritari is simply incredible, not barbaric or stupid as they were thought to be. He had a wicked sense of humor and passion for debate. They could talk for hours on end and argue about anything, the other always had an interesting approach to any topic. Even if they don't always agree it's easy to see his point either way._

_Today he is going late, his family had been harder to get away from than ever before. They seem obsessed with pushing him into any dominants lap in hopes they would be his mate. He absolutely hates this, if he ever gets a mate he wants to pick them by his own volition. In the end of the day the one that is going to be tied to them is him not his family. But they don't understand that, his parents want him to get a mate already. It has been years since he presented as a submissive and his father considers it very inappropriate of him to still not have one. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if at least they asked him nicely or at the very least try to get someone more compatible with him. If he has to sit through one more stupid speech about how great of a dominant they are because they are so strong he will rip his ears off. It's not even true, he can beat all of them in a heartbeat if he wants to, he always has done it._

_He gets to the lake and doesn't stop the smile on his face at the Kiritari that is elegantly stretched over the grass enjoying the sun._

_"You are late again" Altais doesn't look at him. It's easy to know it's him anyway._

_"Yes, the idiot that they set me up with this time tried to order me to stay till moonlight, like I would find that attractive," sitting next to him, "thankfully a broken nose was all that was needed for him to leave me alone."_

_"That will be a marvelous conversation with your family later."_

_"It's their fault for putting the worst dominants they can find, it's pathetic that they keep trying."_

_"And if they find you a good mate you would accept?" Altais asks not looking at him, his tone even but without emotion behind it._

_"I don't know, I guess I wouldn't? I do like the idea of a mate, but no one catches my eye. They are too egotistical and they want a stereotypical submissive. They would be very disappointed with me anyway, and you have to find a submissive that can stand you?"_

_"Hey! What is that supposed to mean? I'm a very nice person to be with" he roll his eyes "I'm not really looking for a mate. Most submissives I encounter are too dependent and a little crazy if you ask me."_

_"Why crazy?" Ignoring the warm feeling in his chest that the answer left._

_"Most of them want me to prove my love to them by me getting hurt. Don't get me wrong, I get the point of protecting them and all of that, but if they are purposely putting themselves in danger just for me to save them it's crazy."_

_"That is a little crazy actually, you poor thing the evil submissives are mean to you" patting his head in mock sympathy._

_"Has your family said anything about the war?" The light atmosphere somber right away._

_"Yes they have, father is quite excited with the prospect of killing more Kiritari and my brother is of an appropriate age to fight as well..." his family was quite important in the war circle of their society, after all they have survived many wars and lead to victory in more than one occasion. "He doesn't really want to fight, he is too young and inexperienced, but he doesn't have a choice."_

_"They are not letting you fight in his place? From what you have told me he is not really fit for battle."_

_"He isn't but he presented as a dominant this month so father is going to make him fight anyway. Even if father would let me into battle, which is unlikely, my mother would oppose. She just wants me to be a good little submissive that doesn't do anything but have kids," looking at the sky with sadness. "What about you? Any news about the next battle?"_

_"We haven't planned too far ahead actually. They are waiting for your kind to do the first move this time" putting his hand on his shoulder for support. "I'm sure your brother will be fine, you can train him properly."_

_"I will try to but since he presented father hasn't let him get close to me saying that it's inappropriate for a dominant to be close with an unmated submissive, no matter that he is my brother."_

_"That is the most moronic rule I have ever heard."_

_"It is but it's because he wants to train him by himself believing that he will do a better job than I will."_

_They stay in silence after that. They normally avoid the family issues since neither of them had a good history. He learned some weeks back that Altais's family don't really care about him, his father just cares about his mate, his son is the least of his worries. His dad, well he is okay with following his mate blindly around. They rarely talk to him apart from fight strategies and while he adores his family, he is not close to either of his parents. He only is close with his little brother, taking much more of a parental roll since he was born._

_"I will not be able to come here next week" suddenly he breaks the silence._

_"Why?" Altais looks very confused and a little worried. They have been meeting daily so it's a natural reaction._

_"My heat should come then, so I will be locked up all of next week" blushing slightly he debated if it was appropriate to tell him this, but in the end the other would worry too much if he just disappeared._

_"Are you going to be okay? I heard it's very... uncomfortable," with neutral tone which he appreciated greatly._

_"I will be fine, it's not the first nor the last I went through without a mate. Don't worry about me." He gave him a carefree smile to ease the others worry. It didn't seem to work but it would have to do._

_\------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Altais was calmly reading in front of the fire, his house was in the middle of the forest far from everything, he likes it this way. He just has to go to the main city a couple of times a month for basic supplies but the rest of the time he can be left alone, because of this when someone started to knock on his door frantically it alarmed him._

_"Who is it?" There is no answer just more frantic knocking. He gave in and opened the door and in seconds he is almost tackled to the ground by a shivering Silian with a sugary essence all around him making his mouth water. "Little bird what are you doing here?"_

_He receives no answer and the submissive just clings to him tighter. He somehow manages to close the door and extracts himself from the other's grip to give him a good look. Harwind looks like a mess, clothes haphazardly put on and even broken in some parts. He has a large bruise on his cheek and a little bit of dry blood on the corner on his lip. He has seen some other bruises on the parts that he can see through the torn clothing, his eyes are unfocused and he is practically purring every time he touches him even slightly. He is still in heat and his essence is the most delectable thing Altais has ever smelled but it's obvious that he has been attacked by someone which is enough for him to lose all his libido and have it replaced by murderous rage and worry._

_"Who did this?" His voice has a hard edge to it that he can't control, Harwind just shivers and tries to get closer to him._

_"Dearheart" he said with a little breathy moan "I need you."_

_"No, you are in no condition to say something like that" working hard to keep a safe distance._

_"But I want you! Please, I need you!"_

_"I know you do, but right now that is not possible. You don't have a clear head and I will not take advantage of that." He talks slightly pained, Harwind looks so desperate and uncomfortable it's killing him. The other uses his little moment of distress to get an opening and position himself in his arms._

_"Please please please! I don't want anyone else please, I didn't let them touch me, I promise I have been good." Saying it like that was the problem here "I need you."_

_"I have no doubt you have been good, but I can't do this without knowing this is what you want when your head is clear." Looking everywhere for help, his self restraint is very good but this was testing it. He saw the door to his room, that could work. "Come with me Harwind I will take you to bed."_

_The other looks at him like he has just given him the world, obviously misinterpreting his words. This almost makes his resolve break, but the implications of what the other said before is still present in his head enough that he can push back the instinct of claiming him. He manages to guide him to his room and quickly push him away locking the door. Harwind starts to cry desperately punching the door and calling for him. "What the hell do I do now?"_

_This is really not how he thought the night was gonna go. He hadn't seen the other for six days just as the other said his heat was coming so he wouldn't see him. He had been very lonely without him being very attached since their first meeting and he couldn't wait to see him again. He had briefly entertained the thought of Harwind asking him to pass this heat with him and be his mate but he quickly shot that thought out of his mind. Harwind didn't like him like that and he is perfectly content with their friendship. Having him throw himself at him still in heat after apparently being almost raped was something that never crossed his mind. He wants to kill every stupid dominant that dared touch him, no matter if he asked for it or not he is clearly in no state to consent. They deserve to die for it but he can't do that without Harwind agreeing to it and telling him who they are._

_How is it that this even happened? He was supposed to be locked up during this time when he is most vulnerable. A terrible feeling of dread set in his stomach, the only people that could put him in this position would be his family, he really hopes that he is wrong._

_He stays in his living room listening the others screams and sobbing while calling his name like he would die without him. It was torture to be there but he was not going to leave him alone. Sometimes he spoke trying to reason with the other or at least soothe him a little, it helped enough but the crying never truly stopped until the next morning._

_"Altais let me out." Hardwin said in his normal voice very raspy from all the screaming. "I promise I will not jump you this time."_

_"Are you feeling better?" He opened the door the sweet smell was still strong but seems to be more settled. His room was a complete mess, Hardwin seemed to have tried to tear it down to get to him._

_"A little..." he looks so small and scared now "I'm sorry..."_

_"There is no need for apologies, you did nothing wrong." He gathered him gently in his arms "what happened?"_

_"I...I...I called your name..." he started to shiver letting the other support all his weight. "When my heat started I was looking for you and father heard me... he was furious saying that I'm a whore asking for an unfit dominant since he doesn't know your name and that he wouldn't stand there to see me ruin his plans for our family."_

_"What did he do" holding him a little tighter instinctively._

_"He brought dominants to my room... he locked me in with them telling them to pick who would mate me" he laughs bitterly and a little hysterically. "I could fight them off at the beginning but the more days past the harder it was, I can't remember much I just know I didn't let them touch me."_

_"How did you escape?"_

_"Brother, he opened the door and let me out. I just ran as far as I could. I didn't know where I was going until I found our river...I don't know what happened after that. I just remember you holding me saying I needed my head clear." He looked up letting him see those green eyes he adores so much, they are puffy and red, he hates to see him like this. Harwind is always so strong that him been so shaken by all of this hurts more than he thought it would. "You didn't mate me even when I was quite literally throwing myself at you."_

_"Of course not. I'm not an animal, as much as my nature might say I am. You were in no condition to consent to anything" he said disgusted at the implication._

_"But you did want me?" Tilting his head to the side with an innocent and happy expression._

_"I...I" he blushed not sure what to say so he went with honesty "Yes I do."_

_"I want you too... I have wanted you for a while now."_

_"You have?!" Astonished he knows that probably the other calling for him during his heat should be obvious enough but he actually just thought it was because his brain didn't make the distinction between friend and mate in that state._

_"Dummy" smiling and pulling him closer for a kiss "I love you, dearheart."_

_\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_"Do you really need to do this?" he asked looking how the other seemed to not be able to stay still anymore. He had been pacing around for an hour. "None of them did much to me. They only punched me, nothing out of the ordinary."_

_"It is not only what they did it's what they wanted to do to you." He almost growls but takes a deep breath to regain his composure and said sincerely "I will never be satisfied if I don't do this. I feel like I already failed at protecting you. As much as I want to ignored it I can't, but if you really don't approve of it I will not do it."_

_"I will not interfere with this if it's something you need, but you have to promise me not to harm my brother" he sighs understanding what the other means, but his brother is really not to blame for anything. He doesn't deserve to be caught in the crossfire._

_"I have no hatred through him little bird, as long as he doesn't interfere I will not harm him." Seeing the disapproval on his face he corrected "even if he interferes I will be very careful not to kill him alright?"_

_"That is better."_

_"Are you sure you don't want to do this with me?"_

_"Yes, I prefer not to interfere. I understand this is something important for you and I'm still weaker than normal, I will be a hindrance more than an asset to your hunt." He sits on the bed where he had been resting for most of the day. "Please be careful dearheart."_

_"I promise I will be" kissing his forehead "I will be back by sunrise."_

_After he disappeared into the night he just lies there thinking. It had been an exhausting week, he had never felt so scare in his life, he has always had the strength and the clarity of mind to take care of himself. He never felt he was in real danger at all but this time he did, there were times where his mind was so fussy and tired that he almost let them do whatever they wanted to him even if he hated it, his body simply didn't have the will to fight them off._

_The only thing that keep him conscious and sane was the memory of Altais. The moment his heat started he wanted him there with him, he isn't dumb, he had been aware of his feeling for the other and he had a very good idea that the other feels the same way. But he had been scared, after all wanting a Kiritari as a mate is not a small thing. It's basically blasphemy for both kinds, but then again even their friendship would be seen in the same way. It's something big and difficult, but now it doesn't seem as daunting as before. Altais's reactions to him was everything he thought it would be, he not for a second believed the other would take advantage of him in any way. He knows he is safe here, that's why his mind brought him here instead of hiding away ._

_He is content even knowing that he is going to kill his family. He should feel bad for it but his parents crossed a line. They prefer him getting raped and hating every second of his life being mated to some disgusting dominant than see him happy with someone they might not approve of. They don't even know is a Kiritari, they believe they had no prestige in war so they deemed them useless. That is just too much, his only regret is leaving his brother alone but he trusts he will understand. Things are going to be very hard from now on but it feels worth the trouble they are going to face. It's worth it if Altais is next to him through it. He smiles at the thought of that while settling himself in the bed to wait for the other to come back._

_\-------------------------------------------------------_

_He made his way to the sky city, it was not precisely easy to get there without wings but Harwind told him about some abandoned passages he found when he was a child. He managed well enough, it was very late in the night when he finally got to his destination. The veil of darkness gave him a clear advantage with his dark fur. He observed the outside of the ostentatious house, he was lucky apparently everyone he wanted to kill was once again gathered here._

_There was a total of five people in the main study, four male dominants and a female submissive. The man sitting behind the desk must be Harwind's father, even if he doesn't resemble him in the least he looks like the oldest male and he had an arm on the woman's waist. Now she did look a lot like Harwind, it was clear he got his looks from her. The other three were nothing remarkable, he recognizes them vaguely from battle but not enough to care for them as an opponent. He decided to go for the dramatic approach and use an incantation to materialize himself into the middle of the study, and with another fast spell he paralyzes them._

_"Who are you!?" Harwind's father screamed, struggled in vain to move._

_"I came to settle a debt," moving around them calmly, "all of you tried to do something despicable to my mate and you must understand how that simply cannot go unpunished."_

_"Mate?" The woman asks confused, "we haven't done anything to any one!"_

_"Oh? But you did, I may not have claimed him officially yet but he is my mate none the less."_

_"Altais ....you are the one he was asking for..." one of the lesser dominants said with fear now._

_"Obviously, who else would I be?" Putting on a threatening smile he looked directly at the man in the chair. "So you say I'm an unfit dominant? I will make you regret those words."_

_Before they could speak another word he lifted the spell, allowing them move again which threw them off guard. He transformed into his animal form. It was stupidly easy to win this way, his sharp claws tear the skin like it was nothing and his teeth rip their extremities without any problem. In seconds the dominants that harmed Harwind were nothing more than body parts scattered on the ground. He was covered in their blood. The father was harder, obviously being a more experienced fighter, but the moment he touched his mate the father became useless. He had her immobilized by the neck, it would be easy to snap it or even tear it apart. The other knew this so he stood perfectly still as if this would make him let her go._

_"She didn't do anything! I put him there. If I had known he was calling for one of your disgusting folk I would have done the right thing and just cut his throat!" Screaming with genuine fear in his voice but trying to intimidate him, "let her go, don't hurt her!"_

_"She let you do it, she blindly followed you. Letting you harm your own son, she is no more innocent than you are." He growls but he saw that the sun would rise very soon, "how could you two raise such a wonderful creature is beyond me. I just wish I had more time to deal with you."_

_In a quick motion he snapped her neck letting the father run to hold her dead body. He stepped behind him while he whaled loudly after just losing his entire life. He decided to grant him the mercy of finishing him off quickly. After all, seeing his mate die is the greatest pain he will ever feel. He bit his throat tearing it out and watching with no little satisfaction how the life left his body._

_He didn't notice the young boy that had just open the door, he was a carbon copy of Harwind just younger. He stood perfectly still waiting for an attack._

_"You came here for my brother?" He said in small voice scared of him but trying to keep his head high. "You are the person he has been meeting with."_

_"Yes."_

_"Will you kill me too?"_

_"I promised Harwind that I will not harm you. After all, you helped him escape, I owe you." The boy visibly relaxed._

_"You don't owe me, as long as my brother is safe that is enough." He looked around to all the bodies, "you will take good care of him?"_

_"He doesn't need me to but I will protect him no matter what." The boy smiled, this was bizarre, but he supposed the boy would be closer to Harwind than to his parents if their attitude towards him was similar to the one they had for their oldest son._

_"Can you scar me?" The boy asked out of the blue taking a step into the room. "I know you promised not to, but when people find this they will be very suspicious if I'm the only one alive and intact."_

_It was reasonable logic he could just hurt his arm superficially. The acid that is in his claws would scar no matter how harmless the cut is, he steps closer transforming and made quick work of it, leaving a rather large claw mark on the brothers arm. It looked bad but in reality it was merely a scratch._

_"Thank you... I think you should go now. The sun its almost up and it will not take long for people to find this and know a Kiritari did it."_

_"You are right" giving him a piece of his clothes to stop the bleeding, "I will make him happy I promise."_

_"That is all I need, please tell him I will miss him."_

_With a last smile he ran to escape through the secret passages. He got home just in time, Harwind was waiting for him and even with him dripping in the blood of his family and attackers he opened his arms for him. They needed to run, it would not be long before the Silian's found out and started looking for them. If the rumors spread fast enough his people will soon know as well, the smartest thing would be for them to go now. But the sight of Harwind in his bed, peacefully offering him a safe space to rest was just too much to resist. Their problems could wait a couple of hours._

_\------------------------------------------------------------------_

_They ran away the next day as far as they could go. They made a home for themselves in a hill hidden away from any prying eyes. It wasn't easy to get by, but they were happy. They were quietly making dinner when someone knocked on the door. They tensed immediately and the door opened on it's own accord letting someone that most resembled a doll into the house. Before either of them could react the living doll moved its hand and they were forced to sit down._

_The intruder was just unnerving to look at. There was something a little bit off with them, they appeared to be no more that 10 years old. They had big glass looking purple eyes, their skin was pasty white with an exaggerated red blush permanently on their cheeks. Their hair reached their hip arranged in an intricate braid. They were smiling just a little too wide, their skin glowed a little too much, and their overall presence just felt odd._

_"What are you?" Harwind asks. The only thing he was sure of is that whatever this intruder was it wasn't a person._

_The other chuckle amused "I guess that is a good question but I'm sorry to say I don't have a good answer, I'm nothing. I just exist."_

_"That makes no sense" Altais says trying to move._

_"I know it doesn't but it's true anyway." They sat down in the love-seat in front of them. "Don't worry, I mean no harm to either of you."_

_"You barged into our home and you are not letting us move" Altais answered._

_"Well if I let you move you wouldn't listen to me and it would be very tiring to fight you two."_

_"Why are you here?" Harwind said once he stopped struggling to move, it wouldn't be possible anyway._

_"I'm just here as a warning for both your kin. If they don't change their ways, you will regret it."_

_"What?"_

_"Your people were given a beautiful gift and have been using it as a way to slaughter your equals. If this doesn't stop then magic will punish the offenders."_

_"Magic will punish the offenders? How is that possible?" Harwind was entirely confused. He is starting to believe he passed out and this is just a strange dream._

_"Of course it's possible. Magic has always been a sentient being, it has been suffering ever since your battles started. You are their children, you see them kill each other and hate each other so strongly it has harmed them greatly" they smile sadly, "you two became their last hope of fixing this otherwise they will have to start over."_

_"Why us?" Altais said once he gave up fighting as well. "We are not even part of our own kin anymore."_

_"Because you both gave them hope. You two saw more than the hatred your kin has for each other. You two could have killed one another in your first meeting but you chose to listen. You chose to share and get to know the other, they hope you can be an example. That you can help make a bridge that will unite both species" the child says._

_"What do you mean by start over?"_

_"If the problem is unfixable, magic will sacrifice those who have used it for harmful purposes."_

_"A genocide, but you said magic considered us their children. How can they kill them so easily."_

_"I never said this was an easy choice, but what is the other option? Taking away the magic of both would prove even more fatal for both kinds. We are giving them a chance to make this right at least." The child finally let them move but neither could will their bodies to do anything. "It is a small mercy."_

_"How do we know what you say is true. We don't even know what you are or why you would bring this message to us" Altais said._

_"You know what I say is true you can feel it, I am just a messenger. I was created by magic to bring this message to you, I'm nothing more that that. After I do so I will go back into part of the stream of magic"_

_"You will die?" That sounds very cruel to just be created to die shortly after._

_"I'm not really alive in the first place, but you could say that I suppose."_

_"This is too much. If we go back we will die" Altais said firmly. "They will not listen to us, we are an abomination to them."_

_"We want you to give them the message and we hope this will make them reconsider and not harm either of you." The child tilted their head, "but I guess if they don't listen and kill you two it would be the end for them."_

_"There is too much risk for us. They will not change their minds that easily."_

_"Then they will pay the price of that decision." The child got up to leave, "we believe you two could do this, restoring the balance of magic. Maybe not in this life, but we know you are the ones that will do it."_

_"Maybe not in this life?" They looked at each other, it was a beautiful possibility to meet one another in another life but... if the price will be death in this one would it really be worth it?._

_"History sadly repeats itself more often than not, and if this not solved now it is possible that it will happen again." It smiles at them looking slightly more human. "You will understand someday."_

_As suddenly as it came it disappeared. In the blink of an eye they were completely gone. Neither of them knew what to do now, this didn't feel real. This was a difficult choice, they were going to be killed if they went back to their realms, but not doing this could mean death as well._

_Sadly this choice was taken away from them. That night they were found and ripped away from their home. It happened so quickly they weren't able to fight back, they were knocked out as soon as they woke up._

_The next time they were conscious they were displayed in the middle of what usually was battle ground. They were chained to a tree trunk in front of one another, the entirety of both realms were there looking at them with revulsion. They were screaming at the top of their lungs that they believed they were an abomination. There were very few faces that showed indifference and one that was terrified. The last one belonging to Harwind's younger brother that was currently being restrained in place and forced to watch._

_There was wood and dry leaves at their feet. It was easy to grasp the way they were going to die. Looking into each others eyes ignoring everything else the decision was made for them. At least they were going to try to deliver the message they were entrusted with._

_"Please listen!" Harwind tried to scream over the others. "This is wrong, if you do this you will regret it!"_

_"This is what you deserve!" A female Kiritari said looking at his neck and the markings that were there. "How disgusting can you be to mate a Silian?"_

_"It's worse to mate a Kiritari!" A male Silian scoffed at them._

_"You don't understand! This will be your downfall, magic is suffering from all this hatred. If things don't change you will be destroyed!" Altais screamed trying to get free._

_"You just want us to let you go, but we simply can't let this go unpunished. This is the biggest offence anyone could make, this is blasphemy!" One of the more elder Silian said stepping closer to Harwind. "Your punishment can't be anything other than death."_

_"NO!" Harwind's little brother fought with all his strength but it was useless. " PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DON'T!"_

_"SILENCE!" The voice of the older Silian resonated everywhere, "knock him out, he will only be a nuisance."_

_"NO PLEASE! MY BROTHER DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG, PLEASE!" One of the people that was restraining him used a spell and the boy fell unconscious to the floor._

_"Now we will proceed with the sentence for our people." Without any more interruptions he made the wood and leaves under Harwind catch fire._

_"WAIT! NO NO NO NO!" Altais fought harder the moment the fire started, the chain was too strong to break. He tried with all he had, incantations didn't reach or work in this kind of fire. "HARWIND!!"_

_The fire spread quickly catching the feathers of his wings first and catching his body before he could even process. The pain was unbearable, he felt his blood boiling and the nerves being consumed by the flames. His skin peeling away and the ash entering his lungs every time he scream. He screamed as loud as he could, the agony too much, he could see Altais crying and trying to move even if it was impossible. This is the last thing he will ever see, his beautiful mate crying and screaming his name in agony. He doesn't know how long it took but he finally let the darkness take him._

_The screams stopped. Harwind's body still engulfed in flames but no longer in pain, his soul long gone now. It was almost an hour before he finally died, the only sounds was the quiet crying of his mate._

_Altais looked up to where his little bird used to be. He couldn't describe the feeling of seeing his dead body so brutally murdered, he was glad that he was no longer in pain._

_"You will regret this day" he didn't scream, he didn't need to in the solemn silence around him. "Maybe not today, but you will live to regret what you have done. You doomed yourselves to die and I can only hope you will suffer just as much as my little bird did."_

_"Stop talking nonsense! This will get you nowhere!" His father got closer clearly skeptical, but Altais could see some faces now looking a little pale with fear from the warning. "You are a shame to our family."_

_"You are no family of a mine. My only family was my little bird, with him gone I will accept death gratefully" he said laughing sadly. "I'm just here as a warning, magic is suffering for our own hatred. They didn't give us their gift to use it this way, our death will sentence all of you to their rage."_

_"You truly have gone mad" his father said, ignoring the people that asked him to stop and he lit the fire._

_The pain was terrible, but he was numb to it. Watching his mate die was far more painful than this. This will only be a way for him to go be with him, so he let himself be engulfed in flames._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random detail:  
> Altais is actually one of the stars of the Draco constellation and Harwind is the name of one of the sons the guy that started the Potter family, I just changed the place the D was. I wanted names that could relate to the ones they have now and this is all I could come up with I hope you like them.


	12. New Day

Harry jumped out of the bed breathing heavily, his lungs felt as if they were on fire. He could still feel the flames all over his body, it felt real. He can see some flashes of Harwind's life still in his head, they were all over the place making his head hurt with the new set of memories. 

He saw some pieces of a rather lonely childhood, the day Harwind presented as a submissive at fifteen years old disappointing his father that expected him to be a dominant he could train for war, his little brother being born and his determination to raise him himself and show him all the love he never received. More and more flashes came to mind but it didn't stay long enough for him to grasp everything and leaving him with a headache.

The only part of this new memory that he could comprehend completely was Altais. Everything about him was clear as day, his smile, his temper, every little conversation they had together and most important his feelings for him. It was odd to say the least he loved him with a heart that doesn't completely feel like his own. He feels the pain of his loss but he can't distinguish how much of that is his own and how much is second hand emotion from Harwind if there is any difference between the two. He can see how Altais resembles Draco, not only in appearance but in personality. But he can also see that they aren't exactly the same and his mind and heart don't seem to know what to do with all off these new and strange feelings and it was overwhelming him.

He looked at Draco expecting to see the other peacefully sleeping hoping that he would tell him all of this was just a strange dream but instead Draco is wide awake looking at him with both confusion and so much sorrow that he felt like someone punched him in the gut.

"Dearheart?" The endearment came naturally, Draco started to cry and he quickly gathered him in his arms "I'm here. I'm alive...."

Draco hugged him as tightly as he could, the pain of seeing him die was too fresh, the screams of agony still present in his mind. Harry keeps saying comforting words in his ear while letting him bawl his eyes out for as long as he needed to, he wasn't sure how much of what he saw was real. His memories were fuzzy and difficult to figure out between old and new, it was giving him a migraine.

"It was real" Harry said once he stopped crying. He had a gentle smile on his face not even trying to get out of the painfully tight grip the other had on him.

"It felt real" Draco responded while Harry gently maneuvered him to lie down on his chest so he could hear his heartbeat.

"What they said, it was true then. If we couldn't in that life, the next one we would have another chance." Sighing at the ominous message, "what do we do?"

"I'm not sure, everything feels fuzzy..." Draco said.

"Should we tell everyone?" Harry asked unsure. It wasn't that he wanted to hide this but he wasn't sure if he was ready say it out loud.

Draco considered this for a moment. He trusts his family but they would ask too many questions for which neither of them had an answer. "We should wait for a little while, at least until we understand it better."

"I still don't remember everything.. just some flashes here and there." Harry leaned on Draco, playing with the blond's hair to distracted himself. "It doesn't feel like these memories are mine... they feel borrowed in some way."

"I understand. I know it was me, I can feel it was, but it hasn't completely settled." It was the best way he could describe it.

Harry decided to change the subject, he was not ready to handle the rest this conversation now, he smiled happily "you are my mate."

Draco smiled at the excitement in the tone welcoming the change of topic. "Yes I am, disappointed?" he said with a teasing smirk.

"Idiot" Harry rolls his eyes and kisses him "I hope you won't be as insufferable now."

"I was a delight to live with!" Draco feigning hurt, it was most definitely a lie.

"Yeah sure" voice dripping with sarcasm "because you were so charming when you had to wake up early. A sweetheart really."

"You wake up at 5 in the morning, who does that on purpose?" Crossing his arms because really why would you do that to yourself.

"People with a working sleeping schedule?" Raising an eyebrow he heard this argument countless times before. Harwind never really learned how to get out of bed without waking the other up or well it was more that he loved how grumpy the other got so he never tried not to do it.

"The sun wasn't even out yet, that is just unreasonable" yawning now that the initial wave of emotion passed, his body felt drained.

"If you are still tired you can go back to sleep. I have some chores to do." Draco looked at him warily, almost like if he went out of his sight something terrible would happen. He can't really blame him for feeling like that "I'm going to be fine. I will be in the kitchen when you wake up." Squeezing his hand reassuringly it took some more convincing but finally Draco went back to a dreamless sleep thankfully.

Downstairs he saw that Adris was still sleeping but Kaly was nowhere to be seen. He made his way to the kitchens to find her there calmly drinking tea. She smiled kindly, her wings were on display shining with the gently sunlight of the morning. It made him remember his own new wings, he wasn't exactly in pain for them but it was a lot more uncomfortable now than it was last night. The muscle felt more cramped and his skin was itching. She chuckled noticing his discomfort.

" _Sit libera,_ that is the spell to take them out. But first, _-_ " she grabbed the knife she had strapped to her leg and made him turn around. Before he could ask what she was doing he heard tearing of fabric. "I'm making a hole for them otherwise you are going to rip the entire shirt."

"Why do you have a knife?" looking at the relatively small dagger most likely the one she used yesterday to help him as well.

"You never know when you will need one. It's better to be prepared... all done now try."

He contorted himself to look at his back now that his shirt had a big cut that went to his mid back. The skin of his back looked slightly irritated but nothing too bad. He tried the spell and his wings and eyes changed with ease, he moved a little to alleviated the sore muscles. 

"Thank you, why are you up so early? Is it some kind of Silian thing?"

"I guess you could say it's a Silian thing. We don't need much sleep in general, about four hours is more than enough. Of course there is the exception of people that simply want to sleep more." She quickly checked his back pleased to see everything was fine. She had worried she was too late to help him the day before, that could cause some damage in the new wings. "Everything looks fine. Soon you should be able to fly with them without any trouble."

"Really?" he couldn't hide his excitement for this. 

"Yes, they are quite healthy and I made it in time to take them out safely. I would say in couple of weeks they should settle into your body enough for flying."

"Are you planning to stay here?" he asks after a while of cleaning and some mindless chatter.

"No, we need to leave today to tell the rest about all of this," she smiles kindly while helping feeding Atreya.

"Oh..I had hoped you would stay, there is so much I have to learn yet" sadness leaking into his voice.

"We will be around if you need us, don't worry." Patting his head, " you can send us letters with all your questions. Your owl will know how to find us she is rather resourceful. She found us quite a bit during our stay in the woods."

"She is very smart." Hedwig always seems to know everything around her if it somehow involved him. "Thank you for your help, really."

"No need to thank me" she disappeared for a moment to then come back dragging her half asleep mate. "We will go for now, the journey to the other is long. We will try to gather more information about the legends as much as we can."

"Goodbye, have a safe trip please." Accompanying them into the garden for them to make their way to the woods.

"Bye, we will see you again soon." That was the last thing she said before disappearing into thin air.

He continued his routine as best as he could manage with his new body. He kept knocking things over with his wings, either stepping on them or losing balance. It took him double the time to do anything. He was halfway done making breakfast when a pair of arms came to circle his waist.

"Finally awake?" He let Draco accommodate his wings to fit himself more comfortably on his back.

"I needed my beauty sleep." Draco bent to put his chin on his shoulder "Are Adris and Kaly still here?"

"No, they left a little after I woke up. Kaly said they need to inform the rest of their people about this and collect some more information." 

"Is there a way for us to contact them if anything happens?" He was still unsure if he wanted to share what they learned last night but they might have to at some point.

"Hedwig. Apparently she's rather good at finding them."

"Your owl is weird." Briefly remembering that that owl tended to watch him like a hawk every time he was near Harry.

"She is clever." Draco decided to distract him by giving him tiny kisses on the part of his neck that is ticklish. "Hey! Stop hahaha I have a knife stop! Hahhaha!"

There was an amused laugh behind them, the other adults were now in the kitchen. Remus seemed to be the one that laughed. He had a smile on his face from seeing the closeness of the two. Narcissa was glowing with happiness, Snape looked like he swallowed a lemon and Lucius was as unexpressive as ever. Well at least they won't need to tell them they are now in a relationship.

"Can you please stop the unnecessary display of affection," Severus grunted when he sat down.

"But whyyyyy" Draco whined just to annoy him more. "I'm not doing anything inappropriate... yet," saying the last part under his breath. By the scowl on his godfather's face he heard him anyway.

"Do you have no decency?" his godfather glared at him. He was always cranky in the mornings.

"I skipped that class on Malfoy etiquette" his father raised an eyebrow at him but the corner of his mouth was turned up slightly. "And I have caught you and father doing far more _indecent_ that this"

"You little brat, Potter is already being a bad influence on you."

"Hey! I didn't do anything!" Harry said feigning hurt but his smile showed his good mood. "I was trying to get him off me."

"Yes and you were doing such a good job at it" Remus said sarcastically. 

"I threatened him with a knife that should be enough," moving the knife in his hand like that proved his innocence. "Slytherins are supposed to have self preservation and all of that."

"Like you were actually going to stab me," Draco rolled his eyes.

"You really think I wouldn't?" Harry said dead serious. 

"I'm too pretty to be stabbed."

Harry just sighed fondly and put breakfast on the table trying to sit down.

"I'm so happy you two are finally a couple. I don't understand what took you so long." Narcissa finally said excited and both boys just blushed and looked down.

"It took longer than I expected but congratulations." Lucius said sending a look to his son, he fully expected him to start the proper courting soon.

"You talk as if it was years. We have barely been here two months." Draco scowled to cover the embarrassment and purposely ignored his father eyes.

"Yes Dragon, but you have been infatuated with Harry for years" his mother helpfully said.

"Mother please" he hid his face in his hands while Harry laughed.

"Cub, I sat through one too many speeches about Draco for you to be laughing now."

"Remus!" Harry threw a napkin at him as if that would shut him up. "They weren't speeches, I was just telling you how insufferable he is."

"For two hours?" Remus asked raising an eyebrow. Draco was somewhat offended and flattered by that.

The adults laughed at the teens expense for the rest of the meal. None of them touched the subject of the previous day, there was not much they could say about it anyway with such little information.

They had little to none Intel on Voldemort. These past months he had been active yes, but it was minor raids. Just mindless killing so he hasn't summoned Snape to any reunions. Harry hadn't had any visions this summer so he couldn't help either. 

They settled into their routine again easily. Snape threw himself into research the rest of the month. He was reading anything about their species he could find, it was very little and they were treated more like a forgotten fairy tale. It was driving him crazy not finding anything remotely useful.

"You will not find anything Severus, those girls already said that there was almost no information of them for us to find." Lucius said one night when Severus he was particularly snappy for his lack of progress.

"But there has to be something! How can an entire species hide for this long" Severus says closing the book forcefully.

"They mentioned that there are not many of them left. It is easier for them to hide everything if they keep their numbers small," gently forcing him to lie down, "if you keep going like this you will get sick."

"I will not" Severus scowled like the implication of him getting sick was offensive.

"I know you want to help them but there is little we can do here. When the school year starts you will be able to do more" Lucius said patiently. He always used to do this when Severus overworked himself studying for his Hogwarts exams or during his apprenticeship to become a potion's master. "The Dark Lord hasn't done any major plans if he hasn't called you."

"I don't think he will even if there were. He always knew of our friendship." Severus seems distressed with the prospect. He hated being a spy but he was the last one they had. 

"That may be true, but you weren't there when I was discovered and you passed his test of loyalty afterwards as well. He still trusts you" Lucius said neutrally.

"You can't know that. The Dark Lord has always been distrustful of all of us, "he sighs resting his eyes for a bit before speaking in a low tone. "He has been active, the news of a raid arrived today. He killed a muggle family near London, both parents and their three little girls... the oldest was five years old Luc."

"He is a lunatic with too much power in his hands, I'm glad you didn't have to assist him on that nauseating mission" Lucius said a little sick to his stomach. The Dark Lord always preferred to target families when he was in the mood to kill.

"I could have helped them... maybe help the girls to escape..." Severus whispered. 

"No you couldn't, not without being discovered. He would have killed you and them." He pulled Severus closer to him. The children's deaths always haunted him more. "You are a lot more helpful alive Severus. This will be over soon."

Severus let himself be moved in the bed before letting out a hollow laugh, "yes with the apparent genocide of the entire wizarding kind."

"We don't know that. It could be just a legend." He was not very hopeful about this but he needs to be optimistic. "Even if it is true, I'm sure we can find a solution. Draco and Harry are remarkable wizards. If it depends on them, I trust they are capable of anything that needs to be done." 

"They are too young for all of this. They haven't even finished their education Luc," Severus said. It pained him to think about, Draco was like his own son, he loved him as much as he would his own son. Harry definitely deserved better than all of this pressure on him. "I don't want them involved."

"I wish that was an option Sev, but it's not up to us. We can only prepare them to the best of our ability."

They stayed in silence, from here on out it wouldn't be easy, and sadly they will all be involved. They relished in the silence, in the peace they could have for now. They could only hope this peace will prevail for longer than one night. A few steps down the hall Narcissa knocked on the werewolf's door.

"Isa? What are you doing awake?" Remus opened the door almost right away letting her in.

"I couldn't sleep..." she said honestly and sat down on the foot of the bed. 

"What's troubling you?" sitting beside her.

"I can't stop thinking about what those two girls said. I know Harry and my Dragon will be involved in the upcoming war... but they are so young. They haven't had any time to live yet, they shouldn't have all of this looming over their heads..." 

"I understand. If it was up to me I would send them as far away as possible to keep them safe" he said with total sincerity, he had thought about it more that once.

"They are so happy, they are finally happy." She couldn't even remember the last time her son smiled like he did today if he ever did before. "I don't understand how you have managed this with Harry for so many years...I'm going crazy and it has only been a day."

"I'm not holding myself together much better, I'm constantly worrying about him. But, I try to remember that at least right this second he is happy and healthy and within my reach." Remus put an arm around her for comfort while she put her head on his chest. "That is all we can do for now. Be here for them, protect them, and enjoy the time we are given."

"For someone younger, you sometimes speak wisely" safely nestled in his arms.

"A very wise woman told me that a long time ago," he smiled with nostalgia. Narcissa looked up at him before asking "who?" 

"Lady Potter." She looked surprised so he elaborated, he spoke with a sweet smile on his face lost in memories. "We used to go to James's house for at least one month every summer. Lord and Lady Potter were the kindest people I have ever met. They never judged or insulted anyone and everyone was always welcome at their home. She told me this in our fifth year when James decided that he would become an auror instead of a professional quidditch player as he had wanted since childhood..." He could remember that day very clearly. It was painful to see James letting go of his dream like that, but his desire for saving others was always bigger than his love for quidditch. "They were not happy about that, they were worried sick. They knew after all, everyone knew, that times were dangerous. Lord Potter tried his best to talk him out of it but Lady Potter never said a word against his decision."

"I found her in the library that night and I asked her if she was worried about James. I just couldn't fathom how she was okay with him being an auror." She always had been overprotective and over indulgent with James, so much so that James was sure that his mother was going to cry and scream at him for hours no to do it. No other reaction made sense. "She just smiled at me and said that she can't stop James. If this is the path he chose in life, the only thing she could do was make sure he knew he is loved and has her support every step of the way while he is still healthy and alive in her home."

Narcissa smiles, she had never heard much about the Potter's. Her parents were not fond of them and even if they were a respected family they were treated as a taboo subject for most purebloods. "She sounds like a very wise women, you sound very fond of her."

"She was like a second mother to all of us. Since the beginning she treated us like her sons, she gave us all her love and support always." He loves his parents and he knows they did their best with what they were given. But the Potter's always will have a special place in his heart as his second family. "She knew of my condition... or well I assume they both did. They never questioned me about it or tried to convince James that it was too dangerous to be around me. They actually went out of their way to help me and my parents. They were one of a kind."

"I would have loved to meet them" she said sincerely. They sound like the type of person she wanted to have as a role model when she was younger, purebloods that were kind and gentle, not just egocentric and judgmental. 

"I would love to see them again," with a heavy sigh he added, "I would love for Harry to meet them."

"Did they have a portrait? It's not the same I know but it is a semblance of what they were."

"I don't know if they had one, if they did it is in the Potter's manor and that place vanished with them."

"What do you mean vanished?"

"The death of his parents was very hard for James...he not only had to deal with his own grief, but Sirius's as well since he always was like a younger brother to him. He couldn't forced himself to go back there after their death, the manor was never reclaimed as the new Lord Potter so it vanished. It's impossible to find, I know, I tried." He tried for a year to find it but apparition was impossible. He just wanted to see the place that had so many good memories for him.

Narcissa had a good idea of how they could find that place again, but she would have to speak with her husband before getting Remus's hopes up. It wasn't something easy, and they would need Harry's cooperation for it.

"Remus would you let me stay here tonight?" she said out of nowhere making Remus blush. "I don't want to be alone... would you hold me?"

Remus could only nod since his brain stopped working. He moved automatically to the bed, letting her lay on his chest comfortably. In no time she was peacefully sleeping. He could only stay there watching her sleep for as long as he could before accompanying her into a peaceful dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sit libera / let them free or at least that is what google told me  
> i hope you like this chapter any feedback is greatly appreciated. This is definitely not going as I originally thought it would but oh well, I'm enjoying writing it ^^


	13. Hogwarts's letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very iffy about this chapter I had it done like two weeks ago, but my computer decided to die at the worst moment possible. It finally worked again but I lost everything I had already wrote :(

The morning of the twenty-fifth of August the usually peaceful household was thrown off its usual routine thanks to a very overly excited Harry Potter. He woke up before dawn, as most days he couldn't hold in his excitement. Today they were going to get their O.W.L. results and soon they would be back at Hogwarts. He had a great time here and he will miss the domestic peace they had, but the castle of Hogwarts will always be a place he wants to come back to desperately, even more now that Remus will be back as a teacher.

He jumped out of the bed, forgetting that his current pillow breathes, he jumps up punching Draco square in the jaw.

"Ahh!" Draco wakes up disoriented "Harry?... what happened?"

"I'm sorry, I forgot you were there" Harry said looking sheepish.

"I will ignore that for now." He groaned looking at the window, the sun was not out so it was definitely too early to deal with this. At least it seems that Harry is happy, so it wasn't a nightmare. "What has you so lively this early?"

"We get our O.W.L. results today! I want to go back as soon as possible." He seems to be buzzing with excitement. He didn't particularly care about his results, he knew it was probably pretty average.

"Oh really, it's today? You are the only person I know that would be this happy of going back to writing essays." Draco smiles, it was a little endearing how happy he is about this.

"Don't remind me of that please, I don't know how those people manage to make magic seem so boring" he buried his face in Draco's chest "but I do want to go back to the castle. I miss it."

Draco wraps his arms around Harry. "Do you think you will be able to do something in the castle since you are the heir of the founders?" No one knew their was still the possibility of an heir for the founders. After all, their blood lines were believed to be extinct. Because of this many of the secret of the castle were supposed to be lost forever.

"Maybe? Well I'm the only one that can enter the Chamber of Secrets, so there might be more places like that" he entertained the thought for a little while.

"Wait, you can enter The Chamber?" Draco looked at him in shock.

"You didn't know? I thought the rumor would have spread fast" Harry said tilting his head. "We found it in our second year, Ron and me went to save Ginny. Your father put a cursed diary in her schools supplies and it was draining her soul and controlling her, she technically was the one that opened the chamber and caused the attacks."

Draco stared at him for a long time. Harry was starting to worry that he said too much. "I heard the rumors, but I thought they were just a cheap excuse of the headmaster to give Gryffindor last minute points," Draco said with a tone of disbelief. Remembering a certain part of the rumor that terrified him "please tell me that the basilisk part was just a rumor."

Harry stayed silent, which was answer enough. "Harry!" was all Draco could say. How the hell someone manages to find a basilisk when they are twelve, Harry's luck is either really amazing for surviving or absolutely terrible for being in that position on the first place.

"Hey it wasn't my fault, Salazar Slytherin was the one that put it there in the first place, and that diary gave Ginny the capability to set it free." Harry tried to make it sound better, "Fawkes helped me a lot and I survived the bite just fine."

"What bite?" Draco stopped his rambling before he could continue.

"Uh, nothing..." looking anywhere but the blonde now.

"Harry, what bite?" he said in a serious tone. Harry didn't have any other option than show him the scar the fang made. Draco gasped and squeezed his arm tightly.

"I promise it was not as bad as it looks. One of the fangs just pierced my arm when I stabbed it through the mouth. Fawkes cried on the wound and it healed perfectly, you don't need to worry." Draco had to take a deep breathe to calm himself, there was no point getting upset over this.

"Alright, as long as you are fine." Harry smiled relieved that Draco didn't freak out, "can you show me the chamber when we are back?"

"Sure, but why would you want to go there?" Harry asked a little confused.

"Are you kidding, I want to see that basilisk. There are so many potions that can be done with the poison and scales" Draco answered immediately. He was always fascinated by this creature in particular, but they were not exactly easy to find. "And the chamber is supposed to have a vast amount of knowledge hidden there."

"Really? Then we can try to go, I haven't tried since second year but it should be easy." He looked out the window noticing that it was bright outside, they must have been here longer that he thought "Oh the others should wake up soon!"

He jumped out this time being careful to not hit Draco again, to his surprise his boyfriend got up as well. "There is not point in going back to sleep now."

Harry's excitement didn't waver the rest morning. He was skipping around the house singing softly, he was so restless and distracted he ended up slipping and crashing down on the floor. Draco looked at him move with a soft smile and couldn't help but laugh. All the noise finally woke up the rest of the inhabitants in the house, they were looking at them in various degrees of amusement and irritation.

"It's not funny!" Harry said trying to be mad but smiling anyway.

"Why is he so _chipper_ at this ungodly hour?" Severus said chipper like it was the worst sin known to humanity.

"It is not that early it's already 6:30" Harry said smiling. Draco answered his godfather "he is happy that we receive our O.W.L.s today."

"Oh, that is today? I wonder if you will make prefect Dragon" Narcissa beamed after Harry gave her a decent amount of coffee.

"He will be a prefect, every Malfoy has been" Lucius added like it was obvious.

"Are you nervous for your results Harry?" Narcissa asked.

"A little?" he responded unsure. "I believe I did passable in most but I most likely failed history of magic and divination miserably."

"Why history of magic? Divination is no more than a waste of time so nothing to worry about there" Lucius said. 

"Well I didn't finish half of the exam and I already was going to do poorly on it, I'm not expecting great things."

"Do you have any plans for after Hogwarts dear?" before Harry could answer, two owls landed and extended their little legs to the students.

Both teens looked at the envelopes for a long moment before gathering the courage to actually open them. Harry took a deep breath and opened his letter. First was the letter with all the supplies they would need. Then there was the letter with his results.

_Ordinary Wizarding Level Results_

_Passing Grades:_

_Outstanding ( **O** )_

_Exceeds Expectations ( **E** )_

_Acceptable ( **A** )_

_Failing Grades:_

_Poor ( **P** )_

_Dreadful ( **D** )_

_Troll ( **T** )_

_Harry James Potter has achieved:_

_Astronomy: A_

_Care of Magical Creatures: O_

_Charms: O_

_Defence against the Dark Arts: O_

_Divination: P_

_Herbology: E_

_History of Magic: D_

_Potions: O_

_Transfiguration: E_

Harry breathed in relief. Although he was shocked he had gotten way better result than he ever hoped for. He even got an O in potions! He really didn't expect to do well enough to get into the NEWT level class, he was extremely happy. He didn't even get as bad of a grade as he expected in divination or history of magic.

"Let me see cub." Remus reached for the letter and smiled proudly. "You did great Harry! You even got an O in potions."

"Impressive what he can do when he actually pays attention" Snape sneered without any real malice, "at least you are not as disastrous as Longbottom."

"Oh yes, because it's so easy to do a potion with someone breathing down your neck and half of the class throwing things in your cauldron" he looked pointedly at Severus and Draco.

"I have no idea what you are talking about" Severus said with a straight face. 

"Who would do such a thing" Draco smirked lightly.

"Yes I wonder" rolling his eyes. "Neville is not that bad" he felt like he needs to defend his friend, but even he couldn't say the boy was good at this and by Snape's unimpressed look he didn't buy it in the least. "Potter I lost count of how many cauldrons he has melted and we are not even going to talk about how many times he has hurt himself."

Deciding that this was a losing battle he moved on and smiled at his boyfriend "did you get the prefect badge?"

Draco didn't answer he only showed him his hand where the badge now was. His parents were going over his grades, he got mostly O's and an E in charms. He is thankful he dropped COMC, he was certain he couldn't even manage a D in that class.

Narcissa looked at both boys proudly. "You both did great, congratulations! Since we all woke up early today we can go and buy the supplies right away and get something special for dinner as a celebration." Everyone agreed and soon after they found themselves in Diagon Alley. It was full of students and parents running around gathering their school supplies.

"Alright we are going to do this efficiently, Severus and Lucius please can you two go get the books for the boys, Remus please get the other supplies like quills, ink, and parchment, and we will go to Madame Malkin's to fit their new robes" Narcissa said with a smile and all of them dispersed. The only ones that bothered to put up full glamour this time were Lucius and Severus, after all it was rather easy to blend in with the crowd.

Harry was enjoying the day immensely with the anonymity, without his old glasses and hiding his scar with his hair, no one even gave him a second glance (Draco disagreed with this glaring at more than one person that were staring at Harry for being attractive). Even a lot of his classmates didn't notice him, it was a refreshing change. They did stare at Narcissa and Draco a lot, he noticed both held themselves in an impeccable manner walking with grace and mostly non expressive faces. People either stared shamelessly at them or they started murmuring something probably unflattering to the closest person.

It was strange to see them like this, he didn't like it one bit, he had grown accustomed to Narcissa's kind smile and Draco's laugh and expressive eyes. Even if their mask of indifference was one he had saw for most of the time he has known them the change made him uneasy, like he needed to be on high alert of everything.

"You two look very odd" he said offhandedly.

"What dear?" Narcissa asked with the barest hint of a smile now that she was looking at him.

"You know all dignified and Malfoy I guess?" tilting his head trying to think of how to explain properly.

"Oh, I guess it's a little odd for you now" she whispered "it's just easier to act this way in public settings. After all, they are going to talk about us one way or another, we prefer to control a little of what they say."

"That makes sense I guess, but it is odd."

"Draco used to say the same when he was little, he refused to talk to us until we acted normal for the longest time, it was adorable." She pinched Draco's cheek that was slightly red now.

"I was 4 and suddenly my parents acted all cold and condescending with everyone. I though someone replaced them or something" Draco mutters.

"Awww that is so cute" Harry said cooing.

"It's not cute" Draco looked extremely offended.

Harry just laughed taking his hand, the three a lot more relaxed now. The two Malfoy's were still colder than they were in private but they were a little more at ease. Harry let himself relax for most of the day, measuring robes was a hassle but Narcissa knew what they needed to get so it when by quickly enough. Draco and him went to check out some stores while she waited for their robes, everything was fine until a familiar redhead girl collided with Draco, he caught her easily.

"Oh sorry..." Ginny said before looking at the face of the one that helped her and her expression shifted to disdain. Draco thought it was rather hypocritical, he is the one that is choking from the foul smell of her perfume, "Malfoy."

"Watch where you walk Weasley" he sneered. "Behave" whispered Harry just for Draco to hear. The other rolled his eyes pushing the girl away from him carefully.

"Ginny! I told you not to run like that!" came Ron's voice that was walking toward them, scowling at Draco and his companion by extension clearly not recognizing him yet, "Malfoy what did you do to my sister!?"

"I prevented her from falling on her face. You know most people would say thank you for that but I guess that would be expecting too many manners." Harry groaned, trying to convince Draco to be polite to Ginny but Ron is a lost cause.

Ron didn't change all that much this summer, he got a little bit taller since he and Draco were the same height now, even with the grow spurt Draco had after the inheritance. Ron also seems to be a little more temperamental as well but that might be because Harry never really paid close attention before. Seeing him hurt still, at least he was going unnoticed, he didn't want to be recognized by them of all people.

"Thank you?" Ron was starting to turn red but before he could say the rest of the phrase Draco cut him off, "Oh you see that wasn't so hard. Seems like even someone as dumb as you can learn basic manners, congratulations."

"I wasn't thanking you! You probably tripped her on purpose!" As always Ron's temper rose to the bait easily.

"Oh yes because I'm dying to have the Weaslette in my arms" his voice dripping in sarcasm. Ginny looked like she couldn't decide between being disgusted of offended by that.

"See it is all your fault!" Ron screamed totally missing the tone of the comment.

"How can you be this much of a moron, that was obviously sarcasm" Draco said astonished at the redhead. "Believe me I would prefer death over being near the abhorrent smell of her perfume again." Ginny glared, it appears that she settled for offended. Ron got even angrier.

"You would be lucky! But who in their right mind would want to be with a slimy Slytherin like you" looking at Draco completely. Draco only raised an eyebrow, he knew there was absolutely nothing the other could say about his appearance as conceited as that sounded. "You worthless bloody ferret."

"Congratulation you know a big word" Draco said uncaring of whatever insult the other could throw at him. Ron got closer like he was getting ready to punch Draco.

"Hey, that is enough!" Harry said taking a step forward next to Draco. He noticed Ginny looking at him from head to toe, hopefully she won't recognize him. "That was completely uncalled for, she tripped and he caught her, nothing else. Why start a fight over that?"

"Who are you? This is not your problem go away" Ron tried to push him but Draco caught his arm before he could.

"Don't dare put a finger on him" Draco said in a low menacing voice. Ron had a brief moment of fear before his foolish Gryffindor courage kicked in and he was going to say something before Ginny screamed.

"HARRY!" she threw herself at him clinging to his neck giving him an overly sweet smile and looking at him through her eyelashes. "Merlin I almost didn't recognize you, you look so handsome without your glasses!"

"Ginny" Harry almost fell at the sudden new weight but he managed to steady himself, forcing a smile "hello, ahh thank you."

Draco felt every nerve in his body scream to tear her apart, that was his mate! Who does she think she is touching him like that, he pushed the feeling down, that was definitely an overreaction. He settled for gently grabbing him by the waist and pushing her away from Harry. "Weaslette I would appreciate if you did not touch my boyfriend like that."

Harry looked at the sky praying for patience, this was actually the best case scenario. He knew Draco was a jealous man and that by his instincts he probably wanted to kill Ginny for clinging to him. So over all this was better, he was just worried about the reaction. Ginny was staring open mouthed at them, and Ron was frowning at him, most likely trying to see if he was truly Harry.

" _Boyfriend!_ " Ginny screeched when the shock wore off, hurting his ears.

"Yes, I'm dating Draco. Please don't scream like that again" Harry said interlacing his hand with the one that was on his waist steeling himself.

"Malfoy? Why would you date Malfoy?" her voice said perfectly how much she found the idea horrific.

"Maybe because I like Draco, that is why people normally date" he is trying to be patient with her, but he didn't like the way she was looking at Draco with such a disdainful look.

"So you are Potter" Ron spat with more hatred than before. "You have sunk low haven't you? Dating a Slytherin? _Malfoy_?"

"Whoever I'm with is not your concern Weasley." Ron glared and he held his ground, keeping eye contact. He knew this was probably not the last time he would have to defend his relationship, he might as well get used to it.

"Everyday you get more desperate for attention, of course you would date this miserable bastard." 

"I sincerely couldn't care less what your opinion is. But we have more important things to do than wasting our time with you, goodbye." Draco squeezed his hand as a sign of support. Harry was proud that his voice didn't shake.

He was turning around before the redhead could say something else and walked away with Draco looking for Narcissa or any of the others, as long as it took him away from them. He distantly heard Ron screaming something but he ignored it. 

They found Narcissa and Lucius outside of the robe shop talking with someone he recognized right away as Mr. Weasley. He almost bolted out of there again but remembered the twins telling him Mr. Weasley was genuinely concerned for him when he disappeared. He felt good about his decision when Mr. Weasley actually saw him and he could physically see the weight lifted from the man's shoulders.

"Harry, I'm so glad to see you. I was going to write to you but I didn't know were to send it." He looked like he wanted to give him a hug but wasn't sure if he could so he patted his shoulder instead. He looked at Draco and smiled "young Malfoy."

"Hello Mr. Weasley, I'm glad to see you as well" Harry smiled. Mr. Weasley looked almost the same, albeit a little sleep deprived. Draco just acknowledged the greeting with polite nod.

"We were just asking Mr. Weasley if he wanted to join us for dinner" Narcissa said when the silence got too long. Harry briefly tensed with the prospect of dinner with Ron before she continued "since he wanted to ask Lucius for some law advice and he is on his own."

"I wouldn't want to impose, really," he said quickly a little embarrassed to ask for advice in front of children.

"It's not imposing, we are inviting you" Lucius said calmly.

"Yes Mr. Weasley, it would be great to talk more with you" said Harry, a lot more relaxed at the idea it was just him.

"Alright, thank you for your kindness" he smiled and they waited for Remus and Severus and quietly made their way to a restaurant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this wasn't too disjointed. I try to remember what exactly I had written before but I'm not sure I manage.  
> please any criticisms is greatly appreciated I'm really trying to improve my writing :)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy to finally write something :D (college is hell and I want to die)

It didn't take them long to find a nice little restaurant to settle into. The walls of the place were painted in a greenish-blue with a pattern on the edges painted in a lighter shade. The tables and chairs were a pure white giving a very bright look to everything. It was considerably full but they were able to find a table for all of them. The atmosphere between them wasn't exactly uncomfortable just a little strange with their new company.

"How have you been Arthur? How is work at the Ministry? " Remus asked once they had all ordered.

"I have been great thank you," he said. His eyes lightened up before speaking of his job, his voice full of excitement, "we received many new fascinating muggle instruments! I'm currently trying to learn how to use something called a spark plug, it's marvelous."

Harry silently prays Mr. Weasley doesn't accidentally blow something up in the near future. "How are Bill and Charlie doing? I haven't heard anything about them in a long time." 

"Both are doing wonderfully, Bill moved back here with his fiancee Fleur, she is very lovely. He is happy with his new position, even if it is a lot less exciting than his work in Egypt. The last time I spoke to Charlie he said that he was taking care of a new flock of Peruvian Vipertooth and that they were close to figuring out a way to help the young ones since they are going to start teething by the end of the summer." He sounded very proud.

Conversation flowed much easier after that, but just when they were about to finish the meal Draco noticed Mr. Weasley was a little bit tense when he was asked something. It was obvious he didn't want to talk about whatever issue that made him go to his father for help with them there. He made eye contact with Harry, he saw that the other boy thought the same. "Harry, I wanted to go see Fred and George can you come with me?" This caught the attention of the rest of the table.

"Sure, I want to see them too" he said with a bright smile. He turned to Mr. Weasley, "it was great to see you sir."

"I'm glad to see you so happy Harry, please say hello to the twins for me" the man answered while they got up.

"I will," taking Draco's hand he practically dragged him outside. The moment they were out of sight he turned to the blonde, "do you really want to go to see Fred and George or you were just making something up?"

"I actually wanted to ask them to send a letter for me..." They started to go in the direction of the store, it was still crowded in the streets just mildly less frantic. "I promised Pansy and Blaise I would contact them before the term started."

"Don't you think they might be around here? Maybe we could find them," Harry said while looking around just in case.

"Not likely, they don't buy their supplies until last minute normally." He stopped walking abruptly startling Harry. He spoke a little nervous "I...I wanted to tell them what happen on your birthday...if that is okay with you of course."

"Everything?" Harry asks, "is that what you put in the letter?"

"Not everything, just as much as the other know. It's too dangerous to put that information in a letter, it could be intercepted by the wrong people." He didn't feel comfortable hiding this from them and he trusts them to keep their mouths shut, but it's not just his secret after all. Harry has no reason to trust his friends. Harry's smile helped him relax.

"Of course you can dearheart, if they have your trust then I have no reason to doubt." He squeezed his hand comfortingly, Draco's heart skipped a beat at the endearment. "My friends know, it's only fair yours do too, I'm looking forward to meeting them actually."

"They will like you I'm sure." He smiles feeling a lot lighter, "although Pansy is a pain to deal with and Blaise is not much better. The only one salvageable one is Theo, he is a sweet."

"I'm sure they are not that bad, you are just dramatic." Harry rolls his eyes laughing softly.

"I'm serious, Pansy finds the love of her life once a week and Blaise is only interest is what new jacket he can buy and sometimes gives rants about how he wants to find a rich person to maintain his lifestyle. They are insufferable" he said with fondness in his voice. "Theo is quiet, but he deserves a prize for not killing us in our sleep."

"I'm looking forward to that." He really was, even if for the last five years he has ignored all the Slytherins except Draco. He is interested to know more of them.

Once they entered the store they quickly went to the back, Fred and George gave Harry a key after his last visit. The twins were concentrating on a spell on a bright blue cape but stopped immediately at their arrival and jumped to hug them tightly.

"Hi! what brings you to" Fred said crushing Harry with a hug.

"Our humble residence?" George finished while doing the same.

"We were just passing by since we came to buy school supplies" Harry said while the twins engulfed Draco with a crushing hug as well. He was extremely happy the twins liked Draco this much.

"How many owls..."

"did you two pass?"

"I bet"

"more than both"

"of us combined."

"I failed two but Draco passed everything" the twins turned to Harry.

"You failed two?" Fred started to cry on cue.

"We are so proud!" George followed to then turn to Draco smiling teasingly, "don't worry, I'm sure you will make it next time."

Draco just rolled his eyes fondly while harry laughed. "How did you two do so badly on your owls, you are obviously not dumb." The Slytherin vaguely gestured around them just as an example.

"School isn't really our thing. Can't say we learn much from it." Fred shrugged after answering while clinging to Harry. 

"It did give us a lot of time to test out our products" George said while putting his arm around Draco's shoulders resting his weight on him.

"I'm pretty sure filch is still trying to make a voodoo doll of you two" Harry said. "Oh Mr. Weasley asked us to say hello for him."

"You saw dad?" both twins seemed surprised.

"Yes, he had lunch with us it was very nice." Harry smiled but then briefly adverted his eyes. "We also ran into Ron and Ginny, that was a little less pleasant."

"What did our lovely brother and sister say this time?" Fred asked slightly annoyed already.

"Not much really, just generally being a nuisance" Draco said not really caring if they were of the same family. He really didn't like the younger Weasleys. 

"I want to be more surprised" Fred said, but saw the cape they had been working on before, they needed to finish that today. 

"Why don't you two explore the store."

"We have many new products,"

"you can take whatever you like"

"on the house."

"We can't do that" Harry protested.

"You don't pay here"

"you gave us our start-up loan, we haven't forgotten."

"Take whatever you like, silent partner of ours."

"Just remember to tell people where you got it." Before he could protest again they were both pushed out of the room with the instruction of looking around.

"Silent partner?" Draco asked after about half an hour of looking around. They were currently in the more defense oriented objects section.

"I gave them the money from the tournament to start their business and open the store. They insisted that makes me a silent partner" he said as if it was a regular thing to give that much money to someone while looking for sweets.

"They did amazing things with that money." He grabbed Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, mostly out of curiosity, while Harry grabbed some sugar hexes and some glow in the dark bubble gum.

"Good choices!" two voices said behind their backs making the couple jump in surprise.

"Merlin! Can't you two announce yourselves without giving me a heart attack!" Draco complained with his hand over his heart.

"That wouldn't be as fun" Fred looked at the products in their hands.

"Darkness Powder is resistant to many Light-creation spells,"

"the Hand of Glory is the one known way to find the way through it."

"Of course our sweet little Harry"

"had to pick something as sweet as him." Both pinched his cheeks that had gone a little red from embarrassment.

"I'm not little!" The other three men looked at him unimpressed, he was definitely the shortest of the four. "Shut up! None of you are a fair comparison."

"If you say so little bird" Draco said. He remembered what they had come in for in the first place and turned to the twins "can I ask you a favor?"

"Favor?" they asked together with an identical devilish grin, "we are all ears."

"I just need to send a letter to Blaise" he clarified, their grin was too similar to a Slytherin's to be trusting.

"No problem."

Of course we will"

"keep in mind that it's a favor"

"just in case." They winked and took the letter.

"How in Salazar's name did you two get put in Gryffindor?" Draco asked half impressed half worried. 

"Wouldn't you like to know" the twins laughed. They stayed in the store for a little longer before they had to go meet the others.

**• ——————— • ——————— •**

"Well Arthur, wasn't there something that you wanted to ask me?" Lucius asked after the teens disappeared from view.

Mr. Weasley tensed minutely before his expression changed to one of defeat. "I wanted to ask you if you knew a good lawyer."

"I do" slightly surprised, "but I will need to know for what?"

"Molly and I are getting a divorce." The table got deadly silent.

"Arthur I'm sorry" Remus said. He was very surprised, he never thought they would split up. They have been together for so long it seems impossible to see them any other way.

"It's okay, it was a long time coming" he looked sad but resigned to this outcome.

"I don't want to intrude, but would you want to talk about it?" Narcissa asked politely.

"Thing are just not working anymore" he sighs and gives them a sad smile. "We fight all the time and I don't believe it is salvageable any longer."

The problems started sometime after they had Percy, out of nowhere they started to fight constantly. It seemed like they couldn't agree on anything anymore, and with time its only gotten worse. Now they seem to only talk to antagonize each other. They both try to keep it away from the children and the public as much as possible. After all, their children didn't need to know their problems as a couple. He doesn't think they were all that successful, he is sure their oldest heard them more than once.

Molly started to be more overbearing and critical of all of their children. Bill had to endure the constant criticism about his appearance since he was old enough to chose his own clothes. He barely talks to them anymore. Arthur isn't sure if Bill will ever again after the horrid way Molly reacted to his engagement.

Charlie has always moved to his own rhythm since he found his calling in life after he read a book about dragons at the age of four. He has never wavered or doubted his choice, even with Molly's very vocal disapproval. They see him once a year for Christmas if they are lucky and even then he is not comfortable and goes back to Romania as soon as he possibly can.

Percy has had severe anxiety, since he started school he regularly had panic attacks. He obsessed over every little thing that he had done wrong real of not, and now it look likes he left the family completely. Percy doesn't answer letters from any of them, even when Arthur tried to visit him at his work he was turned away.

The twins got the worst of it, Molly was harsher to them than she had ever been before. She tried to mold them to be something they weren't meant to be. He did worry excessively when they dropped out of school for their store, after all who wouldn't? But he has seen them succeed, seen them create something wonderful that make them happy, even if it is unconventional. There is nothing to criticize them for anymore.

His relationship with his two youngest has always been the most strained one of all of his children. Even when they were toddlers neither of them seemed to create a bond with him. They stuck more to their mother and barely tolerated him at best. He didn't really have any emotional bond with them either, so he just stayed on the sidelines.

He doesn't understand what happened with Ron if he is honest. He used to be a sweet child, a little too quick to anger but he was loyal. This last year he changed so much he almost can't recognize his son anymore. He couldn't believe he would leave his best friends like he did and not be even a little bit concerned when Harry disappeared, that he could honestly believe the slander he was saying to someone he used to care for so much. Ginny just worries him. She used be so shy and simple, she preferred to be by herself and now out of nowhere she seems to have changed and he is not sure it's for the best. She stopped caring about everyone else and just does whatever she wishes no matter if it hurts others or if it's dangerous.

He will never claim to being a perfect father he has been absent more often than he would like to admit. He loves his children with all his heart but he has not been there every time they had needed him. He sometimes got too caught up into his work or trying to understand the fascinating world of muggles. But he couldn't just stay silent when Molly belittles the way their boys decided to lived their lives, if what their doing makes them happy shouldn't that be all that matters to them? They brought them into the world not to fulfill any expectation but to give them the happiest life they could offer. If that happiness looks different from what they expected, well that is fine with him. 

Maybe their parents were right, maybe they did rush into marriage. They were perfect for one another when they were young, but the years changed both of them in more ways than they could have anticipated. He will never regret his marriage, it gave him his children and they are the most precious thing in his life. But this marriage is only harming them as a family.

"Do the children know?" Remus asked. 

"No they don't... well I guess Ginny and Ron might have an idea of what is happening since I moved out of the Burrow. I haven't told the others yet and I doubt Molly has." It would probably not be a surprise for any of them honestly.

"I can give you the contact of a friend, he will help you sort it out quickly" Lucius said while running a mental list of people that could help. There were not many that would do it at a reasonable price, but he could think of one or two at least.

"Thank you, I greatly appreciate it" he smiles more genuinely now. "I'm sorry I have to go now, I have work the rest of the day. It was a pleasure to see you all."

"It really was a pleasure Arthur, I hope we see you soon" Narcissa said.

"I will send the information in a couple of days" Lucius added.

"Thank you again." With that he was on his way again.

"It will be strange to not see them together anymore," Remus said after a bit of silence. "They have been together for as long as I have known them I believe."

"Yes, I remember them being a couple since I entered Hogwarts. It's sad but I suppose these things happen" Narcissa said sadly. "I'm just glad they can divorce, it would be unfortunate if they were bonded like Lucius and I."

"That is true" Lucius replied, "I'm surprised they didn't do that instead of a regular marriage if i'm honest." 

"From what I know they couldn't have a traditional bonding ceremony because neither of their families approved of the match between them. They were both official betrothed to other people at the time. They eloped once Molly found out she was pregnant" Remus said offhandedly and received incredulous look from everyone. "Sirius told me after he got drunk once. Apparently his mother still had some contact, or at least kept an eye on Arthur's mother, and found out about this even though they covered up the scandal at the time."

"I wouldn't have expected that, they must have done a lot for this not to get out. The other pureblood families would have loved a scandal like this." Lucius cringed at the sheer amount of money one would need to invest to cover the elopement alone, not even taking the pregnancy into account.

"Can you imagine that with them divorcing now? It would be terrible." Narcissa shivered imagining the field day the gossipers would have. "It is sad they didn't work out after taking such a risk."

There was a contemplating silence over the table. Not long after they paid the bill and went on there way to find the teens. Luckily they were just coming out of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, they all happily went back to the place they would call home for the rest of summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thinks it's pretty obvious that I don't like Molly.  
> Hope you like the chapter. I'm mostly happy to have a little bit of free time to write again.


End file.
